Research from the National Center for Youth Opportunity and Justice (NCYOJ) shows that behavioral health and trauma conditions are consistently higher among youth in the juvenile justice system when compared with the general adolescent population.
Washtenaw County Community Mental Health and the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office recently sponsored a 1.5-day workshop in Ann Arbor, during which NCYOJ trainers worked with more than five-dozen individuals from two-dozen Washtenaw County organizations to develop integrated strategies to prevent youth with mental health and substance use conditions from entering the juvenile justice system whenever possible and to better respond to the needs of justice-involved youth experiencing mental health and substance use conditions.
Participants outlined key values that should guide future activities and investments, mapped available community resources, and identified a number of unmet needs and opportunities that will be explored in the months ahead.
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