Trauma Informed Clinical Social Work Practice: Case Composite with Court-Involved Adolescent

Abstract

ABSTRACTAccording to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (Puzzachera, 2013), there were approximately 1.47 million arrests of juveniles in the United States reported in 2011, including 68,150 serious violent crimes and 190,000 simple assaults. These data demonstrate that violent crimes are a significant national issue. Past studies have indicated that court-involved and delinquent adolescents frequently report a history of trauma symptoms and exposure to violence. The goal of this article is to present a framework for practice with court-involved youth that reflects the intersection of literature on adolescent development, trauma, and court-involved youth. Improving our understanding of the influence that trauma has on court-involved adolescents will support our ability to better understand the needs of this population in terms of treatment and crime prevention. This article presents a trauma-specific context for addressing the needs of court-involved youth from developmental, neurobiological, and trauma informed perspectives. One of the central components of this article is the inclusion of the TARGET model, a research-informed exemplar for the treatment of adjudicated adolescents who have histories of trauma. A review of the literature is followed by the presentation of a case composite vignette that exemplifies the need for a trauma-informed approach to working with court-involved adolescents.