Bringing juvenile justice and public health systems together to meet the sexual and reproductive health needs of justice-involved youth.

Abstract

Constitutional mandates require access to medical testing and treatment in correctional settings, including sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care services. These same mandates do not apply to youth supervised in the community, who represent the majority of justice-involved youth. Waiting until youth are in detention settings to provide access to SRH services misses an opportunity to improve health outcomes for youth who have earlier points of contact with the system. This mixed-methods study explored structural intervention development and policy geared toward increasing access to and uptake of SRH prevention, treatment, care, and support services for court-involved, nonincarcerated (CINI) youth. Data were collected from a nationwide survey (N = 226) and qualitative interviews (N = 18) with juvenile justice (JJ) and public health (PH) system stakeholders between December 2015 and January 2017. Results suggest both PH and JJ stakeholders perceive CINI youth as having substantial, largely unmet SRH care needs due to a lack of services, policies, or procedures to address these needs. Barriers to implementing programs and policies to improve SRH services for this population include limited resources (e.g., staffing, time); perceived irrelevance for juvenile court, probation, or other community supervision settings; and concerns about confidentiality, privacy, and information sharing. Recommendations for effective intervention included colocating services, justice-to-community referrals, and service linkages (e.g., through a community health navigator), and staff education around youth SRH confidentiality and information-sharing practices. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).