{"id":104663,"date":"2015-09-23T10:11:02","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T14:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=104663"},"modified":"2015-09-28T10:12:20","modified_gmt":"2015-09-28T14:12:20","slug":"crossover-youth-from-child-welfare-to-juvenile-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2015\/09\/crossover-youth-from-child-welfare-to-juvenile-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Crossover Youth: From Child Welfare to Juvenile Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a><\/div>\n

Connecticut youth whose families have deep involvement in the state\u2019s child welfare system are at the highest risk for involvement in the juvenile justice system when compared to other youths who have contact with state social workers.<\/p>\n

That finding, part of a larger research study recently conducted by UConn\u2019s Center for Applied Research in Human Development<\/a>, suggests that the interventions state workers are targeting for these persistent child welfare cases may not be enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese youth with persistent child welfare involvement across their entire lives come from families experiencing a great deal of adversity,\u201d says UConn associate professor Anne Farrell, the research center\u2019s director.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe combination of traumatic experiences related to maltreatment and lifelong experience of hardship creates opportunities for these youth to go down the wrong path in spite of ample contact with the child welfare system,\u201d Farrell continues. \u201cThis work identifies youth who appear not to benefit from child welfare intervention compared to their peers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study undertaken by UConn researchers focused specifically on so-called \u201ccrossover youth\u201d \u2013 those with a history of child welfare involvement who have also had contact with the juvenile court system.<\/p>\n

While the initial results served to identify and describe the youth who are crossing over in Connecticut, several follow-up studies that will probe deeper into the children\u2019s histories are already in the works. Those studies will look at the children\u2019s educational backgrounds, housing stability, and individual experiences with the juvenile justice system to see if their prior child welfare involvement relates to the outcome of their cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have now is basically a snapshot of who is more likely to crossover,\u201d says Farrell. \u201cIt\u2019s useful and important, as we are not aware of anyone else looking at the data this way, but it really is an incomplete picture. We don\u2019t know what their education experience has been like or what their housing situation has been \u2013 both of which can be proxies for family stability.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to reviewing the youths\u2019 involvement in juvenile court, researchers will be checking to see if crossover youth with DCF involvement experience more lenient treatment because of their difficult past or perhaps experience harsher consequences because they lack the consistent presence of a parent or relative who advocates for them.<\/p>\n

Those kinds of details are of keen interest to the state officials managing the children\u2019s cases.<\/p>\n

This study is an important first step in understanding the crossover youth population in the state and \u201cpart of the state\u2019s ongoing reform efforts to better prevent crossover and support youth well being,\u201d says Catherine Foley Geib, manager of clinical and educational services at the Judicial Branch\u2019s Court Support Services Division, and one of the Center\u2019s partners in the effort. \u201cThe shared aim of all those involved is to understand the unique needs of these vulnerable youth, and identify how systems can coordinate to serve them better.\u201c<\/p>\n

Says Linda Dixon, administrator of Adolescent and Juvenile Services for DCF: \u201cUnderstanding the experiences of the youth and families we serve is a critical step in building the capacity to support families in a natural way. This study will help provide guidance in the development of best practices that are youth-focused and family-driven, relying on true partnership between families, state agencies, and community supports.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an important display of interagency collaboration, the different state entities agreed to share their confidential case file information — with the identities removed — with researchers to facilitate the study. The research was funded by DCF, the Child Protection session of the Superior Court for Juvenile Matters, the Court Support Services Division of the Judicial Branch, and the Office of Policy Management. It was conduced without access to any information that would enable researchers to identify these youth or their families. Farrell says the important new information gained from the endeavor shows how important information sharing can be when dealing with child welfare.<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic systems are often silo-ed, which hampers coordination,\u201d she says. \u201cThe data sharing agreement that enabled this project is a testament to the commitment of state agencies to better support youth.”<\/p>\n

Former UConn doctoral student Kellie Randall served as the lead researcher on the initial study, thanks in part to funding support from the Dean\u2019s office in UConn\u2019s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Randall received her Ph.D. in human development and family studies last year and used the research as part of her dissertation. She now works for Connecticut\u2019s Childhood Health and Development Institute, and will continue to collaborate on the crossover youth initiative.<\/p>\n

Of the 7,268 youth involved with Connecticut\u2019s Department of Children and Families (DCF) whose cases were reviewed in the study, about 18 percent had contact with the juvenile justice system. Consistent with national trends, males, African American, and Hispanic youth had higher rates of crossing over. Importantly, about 80 percent of DCF-involved youth did not cross over. Whereas child welfare involvement does raise the risk of juvenile justice involvement, additional work will aim to identify protective factors associated with lower risk of crossover.<\/p>\n

The study also found that:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Youths who experienced out-of-home placements\/foster care (23.8 percent) crossed over at a higher rate than youths who were never removed from their home (14.5 percent).<\/p>\n

\u2022 Later maltreatment appears to increase the chances of a youth crossing over. Youth who were older at the time of their first DCF contact were more likely to cross over than youths who experienced DCF involvement earlier in their lives.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Youth who had persistent DCF involvement throughout early childhood and into adolescence, while they were the smallest subgroup (only 5.5 percent), crossed over at the highest rate, 30.8 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know a great deal about how developmental stage affects youth experiences and needs,\u201d says Ronald Sabatelli, professor and chair of UConn\u2019s Department of Human Development and Family Studies, who was also part of the research team. \u201cThis study underscores the need to incorporate developmental knowledge when studying youth problems and looking to achieve solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new UConn study finds that youth with a history of child welfare involvement are more likely to have contact with the juvenile court system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":104610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1715],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[44],"class_list":["post-104663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-impact"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 05:35:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104663"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104666,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104663\/revisions\/104666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/104610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104663"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=104663"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=104663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}