Roundup: Working with Defiant Adolescents in Treatment; Advocates' Guide to Improving Mental Health Treatment for Kids in the Juvenile Justice System; and More

Juvenile Justice System - Grants

Here's links to several funding opportunities and a specific fundor. Not all are juvenile-specific. The pool of plausible applicants for several of these will be quite narrow. 

• First, a national mentoring grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), which is intended to provide support and enhancement for community-level mentoring programs for "high-risk populations that are underserved due to location, shortage of mentors, special physical or mental challenges of the targeted population," and so on. OJJDP also issued a similar grant solicitation on a regional, multi-state level. Application deadline (for both): April 22, 2010.
• Alternatively, you can start a new family drug court or enhance an existing one with OJJDP grant funds. Though not focused on teens in the justice system, these funds could provide needed support for substance-using adults in your community's dependency court. Application deadline: April 27, 2010.
• You could also bid on providing technical assistance to the State Advisory Groups (SAGs) in juvenile justice. Applications are due April 29, 2010.
• If you want to do research in the juvenile justice system, Youth Today lists a few more funding opportunities.
• Finally, you might be able to get useful project support from the Public Welfare Foundation, which likes to focus on systemic change. Juvenile justice is a focus area for the foundation. 

Juvenile Justice and Related News 

• Recently, the Justice Department launched a program to address a crisis in the provision of defense counsel to indigent clients. In response, the Washington Post carried a thoughtful editorial on what needs to be done to make legal aid more accessible in the United States. (Hat tip to @courtinnovation.)
• Heard of K2, or "fake weed"?  It's been getting a lot of news coverage lately because it's legal, available over the counter, and has been used by teens in some communities to get high. (Hat tip to @portprevent.)
• An NPR story covered the way that cuts to social services are affecting key prevention programs for kids.
• Modifications to the federal poverty measure are being introduced, though the new metrics are to be considered "supplemental," and not a replacement for the old formula. Unsurprisingly, not everyone's happy with the changes.
• Florida's juvenile justice department has defunded a 20-year-old eatery run by teens, including many in the justice system. (A local paper once singled out the restaurant for having some of the area's "best cheap eats".) It's not entirely clear from the news story, but it appears that the money was redirected to fund a new contract for day treatment services instead. (Hat tip to @YouthJustice.)
• I was please to be able to provide an update on potential changes and debate over the Arizona governor's proposal to transfer all youth from state juvenile justice facilities to the cities and counties, but then I learned from Youth Today that the proposal has now been dropped entirely by Arizona Republicans. However, Arizona's not alone in trying to shift costs to the counties.
• Remember the American Bar Association's (ABA) project to identify and reduce "collateral consequences" for youth appearing in juvenile court? Now, the ABA has adopted a policy to limit collateral consequences for juveniles.

 
Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment and Mental Health Treatment Resources

• Great 2007 publication from the Technical Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental Health for family members and advocates working to improve mental health care for kids in the juvenile justice system. Includes tips for parents if they have a child with mental health problems gets arrested, and more. (Hat tip to Paul Savery.)
• Check out "Working with Defiant Adolescents in Treatment," a newsletter article by Chris Bowers. (Article starts on page three. Hat tip to Paul Savery.)
• The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) offers five handy mini-guides to improving treatment programs. One guide discusses strategies for conducting follow-up interviews with resistant clients.