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Connections is a community-based, collaborative juvenile justice and mental health program that uses a strength-based, wraparound approach to address the needs of juvenile offenders with emotional and behavioral disorders and their families. Balanced and restorative justice principles and values are incorporated in plans to increase youths’ skills, provide services to victims, and increase public safety.
Connections staff are combined into teams consisting of a mental health professional serving as a care coordinator, a family assistance specialist, a probation counselor, and a juvenile services associate. The mental health care coordinator facilitates wraparound team meetings with youths, families, and team members to identify strengths, determine needs, and locate or create services and supports. The family assistance specialist positions are each staffed by a caregiver of a child who has been in the juvenile justice and mental health system; the specialists provide emotional and practical support, often by helping a family prepare for meetings or accompanying them through court proceedings. The family assistance specialist and the mental health care coordinator positions are both available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The probations counselor’s primary responsibility is to ensure that services promote community safety, and the counselor is responsible for ongoing supervision of court orders. The juvenile services associate works closely with youths to assist them in completing requirements of the treatment plan; in addition they also work as mentors, often accompanying youths in the community to activities. A staff clinical psychologist provides 20 hours a week to the program, performing psychological evaluations, staffing cases, and counseling youths. Psychiatric services, including medication management, are contracted. Any juvenile justice staff person can refer youths to the program. Criteria for admission include having 6 months or more of probation time remaining, having a diagnosed or diagnosable behavioral health disorder, receiving services in more than one system, and being assessed as having a moderate or high risk to reoffend as determined by one’s score on the Washington State Juvenile Court Assessment. An initial wraparound team meeting occurs within 30 days of intake, and the child and family teams meet at least once a month or as often as necessary depending on the needs and circumstances of the youth and family. Youths are discharged from Connections when their probationary periods are completed.
This study used a posttest design with a control group to test effectiveness of the program on the recidivism rate of juvenile offenders who have mental health problems. The sample included a treatment group of 106 youths in the Connections program and 98 youths who were identified as being served in both the juvenile justice and mental health systems but not involved in the program because they aged out of services, were discharged from probation, moved out of the county, or had other significant changes during the 21 months between identification and program development. To verify comparability, data from the two groups was compared on variables that have been related to recidivism in previous studies, including age, race, gender, number of offenses, and age at first offense. Race was divided into white or “other” race because of the small number of youths of color in the sample. When compared, age, race, gender, and age of first offense were not significantly different. The difference between the two groups in number of prior offenses was significant. On average, youths in Connections had one more offense than youths in the comparison group, before identification. Age of first offense was close to statistical significance but with an average difference of less than 5 months. These baseline differences were statistically controlled for in the analysis. The outcome variable—recidivism—was measured in two ways: first, the number of days between identification and any type of subsequent substantiated offense including probation violations, misdemeanors, and felonies; second, the number of days between identification and a substantiated felony offense.
The evaluation found that intervention group and gender predicted time until offense. It also found that age at identification, age at first arrest, number of prior arrests, and ethnicity were not significant predictors. Youths in the comparison group were 2.8 times as likely to commit an offense as youths in Connections. Boys were 1.5 times as likely to commit an offense as girls. The evaluation found that intervention group and gender also predicted time until felony offense. Youths in the comparison group were three times as likely to commit a felony offense as youths in Connections. Boys were 2.2 times as likely to commit a felony offense as girls. Of youths in Connections, 72 percent served detention at some point in the 790-day postidentification window—this is significantly different from the comparison group, in which all youths served detention. Of those who did serve detention, the youths in Connections had an average of 4.4 detention episodes, significantly fewer than the average of 7.5 episodes served by youths in the comparison group. The findings show that youths in Connections took three times as long to recidivate, served fewer episodes of detention, and spent fewer total days in detention, compared with the comparison group.
Pullmann, Michael D., Jodi Kerbs, Nancy Koroloff, Ernie Veach–White, Rita Gaylor, and DeDe Sieler. 2006. “Juvenile Offenders With Mental Health Needs: Reducing Recidivism Using Wraparound.” Crime and Delinquency 52(3):375–97.
Ernie Veach–White
Clark County Juvenile Court
500 West 11th Street
P.O. Box 5000
Vancouver, WA 98666–5000
Phone: (360) 397-2201
Fax: (360) 397-6109
E-mail: ernie.veach-white@clark.wa.gov
Web site: http://www.clark.wa.gov/juvenile
Rita R. Gaylor
Clark County Juvenile Court
500 West 11th Street
P.O. Box 5000
Vancouver, WA 98666–5000
Phone: (360) 397-2201
Fax: (360) 397-6109
E-mail: rita.gaylor@clark.wa.gov
Web site: http://www.clark.wa.gov/juvenile
