Troubled Youth Research Articles

Quality of parent communication about sex and its relationship to risky sexual behavior among youth in psychiatric care: a pilot study.

The number of HIV infections among adolescents is increasing, and youth in psychiatric care are at particular risk because of their high rates of risky sexual behavior. As part of a larger longitudinal study examining AIDS-risk behavior among adolescents in psychiatric care, this pilot study investigated the relationship between parent communication about sex and sexual risk-taking among treatment-seeking adolescents. Adolescents reported their risky sexual behavior (e.g., inconsistent condom use, sex with multiple partners), and parents reported how frequently they bring up topics related to sex, HIV/AIDS, and birth control. Parents and adolescents participated together in videotaped discussions of fictional vignettes describing situations related to sex, birth control, and AIDS/HIV. Quality of the parent-teen discussions was coded based on a system developed by Whalen, Henker, Hollingshead, and Burgess (1996) to code AIDS-related discussions. Quality but not frequency of parent-teen communication was associated with adolescent sexual risk-taking, and ethnic differences in communication were found. Findings from this pilot investigation underscore the importance of studying the relationship between parent-teen communication and risky sexual behavior among troubled youth and provide direction for the development of family-based intervention programs that focus on parental behavior during conversations with teens.

Suicidal ideations and attempts in juvenile delinquents.

Suicidality among adolescents is a common focus of clinical attention. In spite of links to disruptive behaviors and other types of psychopathology, it is not clear whether other factors commonly associated with suicide, such as personality and parenting, predict suicidality over and above psychopathology. The purpose of the present study was to assess suicidal ideations and attempts and their relationship to psychopathology, violence exposure, personality traits and parental rearing in Russian male juvenile delinquents with conduct disorder (CD). Suicidality and psychopathology were assessed using a semi-structured psychiatric interview in 271 incarcerated male juvenile delinquents diagnosed with CD. Violence exposure, personality characteristics and perceived parental rearing were assessed via self-reports. Thirty-four percent of those diagnosed with CD (92 subjects) reported a lifetime history of either suicidal thoughts or attempts. Suicidal ideators and attempters did not differ significantly on any variable of interest, but both reported significantly higher rates of psychopathology and violence exposure than the non-suicidal group, as well as higher levels of harm avoidance, lower self-directedness, and higher rates of perceived negative parental rearing. Finally, even when controlling for the relationship with psychopathology, personality and perceived parental rearing factors showed significant associations with suicidality. Juvenile delinquents with CD have high rates of suicidal ideations and attempts, related to a wide spectrum of psychopathology and specific personality traits. These findings suggest that a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors create vulnerability to stressors, which under the influence of situational factors (e.g., repeated traumatization) may lead to suicidal thoughts and acts. Factors potentially contributing to vulnerability for suicidality should be identified when planning prevention and rehabilitation efforts for troubled youth.

Creating synergy through collaboration: Safe schools/ healthy students in salinas, california

AbstractIn Salinas, a city of 150,000 on the Central Coast of California, an $8 million federal grant program is helping children and their families grapple with issues pertaining to violence, substance abuse, mental health, and academic success. In just two years, the program has helped educators and service providers deter school crime, provide on‐campus therapy to troubled youth, increase participation in parenting programs, and decrease truancy at several schools. Most importantly, the Salinas initiative has helped providers coordinate services to children and families who need them most. Project directors say that approach will be crucial as they search for new ways to sustain Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS)‐funded programs. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 503–513, 2003.

The Ada Sheriffs Youth Foundation: The development of a decentralized youth program

This article describes the Ada Sheriffs Youth Foundation (SYF), a program that provides after-school enrichment activities carried out by individual schools. At the time of evaluation, the Foundation had organized early intervention action (EIA) teams in thirty-one elementary schools. The teams identified and linked troubled youth to local community programs. The program, similar in principle to comprehensive prevention programs, differed in that decision making about participants was decentralized, youth were not grouped, and the participants themselves decided what programs they wanted to participate in. An analysis of youths' at-risk scores before and after program participation showed significant improvement in many dimensions of risk. The article concludes with a discussion of issues related to the integrity of program delivery.

Psychiatrists Make Sure Community Hears Youth-Violence Message

Psychiatrists Make Sure Community Hears Youth-Violence Message

Factors that predict adolescent motivation for substance abuse treatment

Many adolescent substance abusers enter treatment because of external pressures and thus lack motivation to change their behavior and engage in treatment. Because an understanding of adolescent motivation may contribute to improved treatment, an investigation of factors that predict motivation was undertaken with youth admitted to an adolescent outpatient substance abuse treatment program ( N = 196). At admission, these subjects received a comprehensive biopsychosocial assessment. Using multiple regression analysis, factors considered to potentially predict motivation were assessed. Of the factors examined, those that involved experiencing various negative consequences of substance use emerged as important predictors of motivation, whereas severity of substance use did not. Diminished awareness of negative consequences of use was consonant with lower motivation, suggesting the importance of interventions to help youth recognize negative consequences of their substance use. Interventions to enhance motivation are likely to become more important as the juvenile justice system increasingly refers troubled youth to treatment.

It Takes a Village

Starting in the 1970s, the traditional rehabilitative philosophy of the juvenile court has come under attack, and there has been a sustained effort to subject delinquent youths to more punitive penalties. Despite such “get tough” policies, a competing body of research has developed suggesting that citizens continue to support “saving” wayward children. This study surveyed a random sample of Tennessee residents to determine whether they believed that rehabilitation should be an integral part of juvenile corrections and whether they would become personally involved in this child-saving effort. The results reveal continued support for juvenile rehabilitation and for early intervention programs. In addition, a sizeable minority of respondents was willing to volunteer to help troubled youths. These results suggest that the public recognizes a collective responsibility to intervene in the lives of delinquent and at-risk youths, thereby supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton's belief that “it takes a village” to raise a child.

Innovative Approaches to Identifying and Responding to the Needs of High Risk Youth

Following a critical review of key issues facing the delivery of effective, cost-attractive services to high-risk youth, and research addressing these experiences, we identify some innovative approaches to identify and respond to the multiple needs of these youth. The importance of providing family services with an ecological focus is stressed. Further, some exciting developments occurring in juvenile assessment centers, involving screening and in-depth assessment, as well as intervention strategies are presented. These innovative developments include for the Tampa Juvenile Assessment Center: 1) a family empowerment intervention service for arrested youth; 2) a family-focused early-intervention, intensive case management service for youth entering a diversion program; and 3) for the Miami-Dade Juvenile Assessment Center, the comprehensive program of research and program development occurring in the context of the National Demonstration Project. We conclude with a discussion of major issues facing the field and the continuing need for a national commitment to help the many troubled youths entering the juvenile justice system.

Program Tailored to Troubled Youth Reduces Recidivism, Saves Money

Program Tailored to Troubled Youth Reduces Recidivism, Saves Money

Media Review: No Disposable KIDS

MEDIA REVIEW Robert B. Rutherford, Jr., Editor No Disposable Larry K. Brendtro, Arlin Ness, and Martin Mitchell Sopris West, Colorado, 2001 At a time when school violence is commonplace and more and more children are being treated as adults in the eyes of the law, we must question whether or not our current practices and interventions in the lives of troubled youths are producing the desired ends. Brendtro, Ness, and Mitchell's text No Disposable KIDS provides readers with an effective tool to begin to answer this question. Not only do they examine the antecedents and consequences of troubled youths' behaviors, but they also analyze the behaviors of the adults and systems that have historically served them. We are asked to consider the potential and strengths of all of our young people. The book opens with a compelling story about a young man whom many considered disposable. In each subsequent chapter, we gain more insight into this young man's private logic and behavior. We are exposed to the difficulty the adults in his life experience as they struggle to make sound decisions about appropriate interventions. Each section of the story then sets the stage for the chapter content that follows. In this widely accessible text, Brendtro and his colleagues provide readers with prescriptions and reminders about what challenging young people need to grow into thriving adults. Several central themes run through the text's five chapters. The importance of involving youths as partners in their own developmental process and engaging them in meaningful ways is paramount in any attempt at intervention. The need for adults to lead by example and the consequences of the failure to do so are brought to the forefront. The crucial task of confronting the presence of racism, hidden or blatant, is stressed throughout. Finally, the content of each chapter is infused with sources readers can go to for more information when confronting a particular challenge, or as the authors suggest, opportunities for change. Chapter One, Rebel with a Cause, lays the foundation for the rest of the book. It is in this chapter that the children who are typically labeled disposable are defined. Readers are compelled to consider the many factors that shape the lives and behavior of these troubled children. In the various sections of the chapter the authors describe the culture of disrespect children are reared in, the cycles of hostility they are caught in, the bullying and ridicule they participate in or succumb to, the effects that negative peer cultures have on them, and the ways in which their lives are interrupted. Each section gives the origins of the behavior, examples of their effects on youths, and examples of ineffective and often inappropriate adult responses to those behaviors. Chapter Two, Kids in Crisis, describes society's view of these troubled youths and the current state of crisis in which many systems that claim to educate, treat, punish, and rehabilitate find themselves. This view, or what the authors describe as the pessimistic lens through which children are observed, shapes educational, mental health, and juvenile/adult justice systems' policies, approaches, and practices as they attempt to punish or rehabilitate troubled youths. Defining these youths in terms of their negative attributes is often seen as justification for their treatment as adults and resulting maltreatment. This practice is reminiscent of the expectancy theory: You get what you expect, both positive and negative. Rather than relying on strengths-based practices, many systems have a history of operating in the deficit model. When researching reasons why some programs have failed in their attempts to treat their youths, the authors cite the following common themes: 1. …

Why Juvenile Courts Should Address Family Violence: Promising Practices to Improve Intervention Outcomes

ABSTRACTThe prevalence of domestic violence in juvenile court cases justifies modifying our interventions to reflect this unfortunate reality. This article focuses primarily on juvenile victimization of parents and the model programs emerging in juvenile courts to address it. Part I examines family violence's prevalence in the juvenile court caseloads, despite its lack of consideration in most dispositions. Part II begins with a comparative analysis of the drug court trend and discusses the trend's applicability for specialized family violence applications in the Juvenile Court. The King County (Wash.) Juvenile Court's Step‐Up Program is introduced, which directly addresses family violence with intervention programs for youth perpetrators and abused parents, followed by the Santa Clara County (Calif.) Juvenile Court's Family Violence program, shown as a model worthy of replication. Part III details the process by which the Travis County (Texas) Juvenile Court is implementing a program similar to these models. Part IV concludes that juvenile courts must address family violence as an overt or underlying issue in many cases and must identify and address the danger to our troubled youths, whether offender or victim. I argue that the domestic violence community's treatment expertise must inform our juvenile courts' interventions with violent, often insular, families. In Travis County, we are committed to learning as much as possible about youth resilience–to identify and treat battered and battering teens to prevent the inter‐generational cycle from repeating itself while making our homes, communities, and schools safe.

Engaging Alienated Youth in Physical Education: An Alternative Program with Lessons for the Traditional Class

This paper presents a case study of a physical education program for troubled youth attending an adolescent treatment center. The site selected for study was deliberately chosen due to the alternative nature of the physical education program and its apparent success in helping to connect students to their school environment. The researcher, as bricoleur, used a variety of methodological tools and strategies to collect data that corresponded to the study’s entry question: How does the physical education program work? Constructed from the data is the story of a gymnasium culture that has been carefully crafted to promote physically and psychologically safe participation that is fair and flexible, where students are encouraged to play just for fun, and a lack of competence is positioned as an opportunity to learn. By incorporating the theoretical framework of the “Circle of Courage” (Brendtro, Brokenleg, & Van Bockern, 1998) into the data analysis, this paper is intended to show how physical education can provide a reclaiming versus alienating learning environment for young people.

Aggression and Fire: Antisocial Behavior in Firesetting and Nonfiresetting Juvenile Offenders

This study examined the association between firesetting and antisocial behavior in 219 juvenile offenders. The study showed, through a series of a priori model comparisons using confirmatory factor analysis, that reliable data on both firesetting (n = 85) and nonfiresetting (n = 134) juvenile offenders best fit a 3-factor model composed of aggressive, nonaggressive, and oppositional antisocial behavior. Although the same general structure of antisocial behavior best fit the data for both groups, the firesetting group exhibited a significantly higher variety and frequency of aggressive and total antisocial acts and an earlier age of index arrest. It is argued that results from this study support a conceptualization of firesetting as accompanying serious and versatile antisocial behavior. Consistency with an early starter pattern of antisocial behavior among firesetting offenders is noted, and evidence suggesting that firesetting is indicative of developmentally advanced, serious, and varied antisocial behavior among troubled youth is discussed.

Book Review: GROUP THERAPY WITH TROUBLED YOUTH: A COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL INTERACTIVE APPROACH , by Sheldon D. Rose. Sage, 1998. 496 (including glossary and index) pages, $44.00

Book Review: GROUP THERAPY WITH TROUBLED YOUTH: A COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL INTERACTIVE APPROACH , by Sheldon D. Rose. Sage, 1998. 496 (including glossary and index) pages, $44.00

Treatment of Choice or a Last Resort? A Review of Residential Mental Health Placements for Children and Youth

Residential treatment programs serve troubled youth who tend to first fail in other treatment programs. Residential treatment is often regarded as a treatment of ‘last resorts.’ A review of available studies of the effectiveness of residential treatment delivered in group home settings and residential treatment centres concludes that, despite methodological shortcomings and variability in programming, residential services do improve functioning for some, but not all, youth. However, gains made during treatment are not easily maintained and tend to dissipate over time. The level of family involvement in treatment is generally regarded as predictive of posttreatment patterns of adjustment. Successful posttreatment patterns of adjustment also depend on posttreatment environmental factors such as available support and residential stability. Continued long-term followup of youth in residential treatment is critical to our understanding of the types of individuals for whom residential settings are a particularly good match.

The school-police partnership. Identifying at-risk youth through a truant recovery program.

A substantial amount of research has established that truancy is a consistent at-risk indicator of future criminality. This article studies the experiences of 178 juveniles targeted by the Truant Recovery Program, a collaborative and nonpunitive school-law enforcement effort, and considers questions regarding its impact through examination of juvenile justice and school information in the years before and after the truancy sweep. In particular, the article suggests that intensive cooperative efforts between school and police may be effective in identifying troubled youth and raises questions about appropriate school and justice system responses for children who demonstrate at-risk behavior.

Piri Thomas: An Interview

Born in Harlem in 1928, Piri Thomas was child of the Depression. His mother was light-skinned Cuban; his father Puerto Rican whose darker complexion Thomas alone of all the children inherited. The cruel racism that he experienced within his own family, in the dehumanizing environment of New York City's ghetto streets, and in the white suburbs, impelled the youthful Thomas to search for his true racial identity, first in the American South and then traveling the worm in the Merchant Marine. Thomas pursued this quest with total and searing honesty. Later he was driven by rage, poverty, and despair into involvement with crime, including armed robbery. In 1955 he ended up in prison. There he found both the inner strength to survive this ordeal and his own voice. Now he was able to write with tremendous candor and integrity and to free himself from his past. Emerging as parolee in 1961 after six horrifying years in prison, Thomas joined the Harlem Writers' Guild. His electrifying, psychologically penetrating autobiographical novel Down These Mean Streets was published in 1967 and won him instant and lasting acclaim. Since then he has published Savior, Savior, Hold My Hand and Seven Long Times, both autobiographies; and Stories from El Barrio as well as numerous articles, many in The New York Times. In addition to his writing, Piri Thomas has devoted much time and effort to helping troubled youths and prison inmates overcome the terrors and burdens of their past and of the oppressive prison system that he, too, knows from the inside. A popular speaker, Thomas has addressed audiences at many universities including Columbia, Yale, Cornell, Howard, Rutgers, Fordham, Brown, and Erlangen in Germany. This interview was conducted on January 28, 1998, in an apartment at 410 East 6th Street in Manhattan and supplemented by telephone conversations with him at his home in Berkeley, California, on March 8; and in El Cerrito, California, on April 12 and 23, 1998. Interviewer: At what point in prison did you begin to write about your experiences? Piri Thomas: I had kept diary in the Merchant Marine, and it was stolen with my duffel bag from the Seamen's Home in lower Manhattan. The main work in prison was surviving, and I was learning another language, the language of positive thinking, and I began to want to write to find expression for what my life was all about. I was always storyteller. I came from long, long, long line of storytellers. We passed our history on by word of mouth, for centuries and centuries. Slave masters would have us killed for even learning how to read, and it was the same in Puerto Rico. If we learned some history, we passed it around. We had no books. We passed it down to little children so that we wouldn't forget. Those who were found expounding these thoughts in those days were immediately killed. So our minds were programmed that way. Interviewer: So you knew that you had slavery in your background? Piri Thomas: Of course. Anywhere you went in the street or wherever you talked to someone, they would tell you what happened. The reason they didn't talk about it in front of white men: the white men would kill them. The white men didn't even want them to talk English and to be able to say things like a conglomeration of manifestation. No, they wanted you to say yousah, boss; yes, sir, boss. You had to play part to survive. You did things that you didn't want to do because you had children, and besides, people who had hatred like that, they would kill you just from boredom. You didn't count as human being simply because they had learned how to dehumanize people by making them sub-humans, varmints. That's the God's honest truth. Racism comes in all the colors. Just like greed. Greed comes in all the colors; it's just that some colors who have the power to make right by might took it all. So we had democracies that were military democracies. …

Contested Portrayals: Medical and Legal Social Control of Juvenile Sex Offenders

While juvenile courts were originally designed to respond to troubled youth by providing treatment appropriate to the needs of individual offenders, advocates of a system that “gets tough” on young criminals by meting out punishments based on offense characteristics (both present offense and past offense history) have become increasingly influential in recent years. In this article, I examine a special case, that of juvenile sex offenders in a Washington State county, for whom a 1990 law reintroduced treatment as a central goal. While Washington has been a forerunner in the shift toward a juvenile justice system in which offending behavior is the central factor in decision making, I argue that, largely as a result of this law, juvenile sex offending has been “medicalized” and that, in this process, distinctions based on offense characteristics have noticeably diminished. This case study provides both empirical support for established theoretical arguments regarding medicalization and a detailed explication of the differences between medical and legal assumptions about social problems.

Understanding AIDS-Risk Behavior Among Adolescents in Psychiatric Care: Links to Psychopathology and Peer Relationships

Severely mentally ill youths are at elevated risk for human immunodeficiency virus infection, but little is known about acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) risk behavior in adolescents who seek outpatient mental health services or about the links between psychiatric problems and particular high-risk behaviors. This pilot study used structural equation modeling to conduct a path analysis to explore the direct and indirect effects of adolescent psychopathology on risky sex, drug/alcohol use, and needle use. Ethnically diverse youths (N = 86) and their caregivers who sought outpatient psychiatric services in Chicago completed questionnaires of adolescent psychopathology. Youths reported their relationship attitudes, peer influence, sexual behavior, and drug/alcohol use. Different AIDS-risk behaviors were associated with distinct forms of adolescent psychopathology (e.g., delinquency was linked to drug/alcohol use, whereas aggression was related to risky sexual behavior), and peer influence mediated these linkages. Some patterns were similar for caregiver- and adolescent-reported problems (e.g., peer influence mediated the relation between delinquency and drug/alcohol use), but others were different (e.g., caregiver-reported delinquency was associated with risky sex, whereas adolescent-reported delinquency was not). Findings underscore the complexity of factors (types of informants and dimensions of psychopathology) that underlie AIDS risk in troubled youths, and they offer specific directions for designing and implementing uniquely tailored AIDS prevention programs, for example, by targeting delinquent behavior and including high-risk peers and important family members in interventions.

Moral Markets for Troubling Youths

Public policy discourses with narrow views of morality and character are at the center of contemporary definitions and marketing of services for violent and troubled youths and children, especially in urban, low-income and black schools and communities in the US. This must be disrupted, this article argues, by exposing the role `moral entrepreneurs' play in such practices. Using descriptive and ethnographic data on violence and related troubles in urban and black schools and communities, the author argues that, left undisturbed, moral entrepreneurs pose as much a risk as those children and youths who are causing so much trouble.