LINKING HIGH RISK YOUTHS WITH NEEDED SERVICES

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This project addresses the critical need to link troubled youths entering the juvenile justice system with needed substance, mental health and other services. Large proportions of these youths and their families do not become engaged in needed services; and, hence, cannot benefit from these services. This project will implement and test an innovative service connection strategy, based on a case management model. The five year randomized experimental, prospective longitudinal study will address three research aims: (1) identifying the relationships between youths' substance abuse, mental health or other service needs and their referrals to substance abuse, mental health or other agencies/programs, (2) using a design with random assignment, evaluating the impact of an intensive case management service for improving troubled youths' and their families' linkage with, placement into, and utilization of substance abuse, mental health or other services, and (3) evaluating the outcome of case management and the youths' substance abuse, mental health or other service experiences in regard to their substance use, delinquency/crime and other areas of psychosocial functioning. Youths entering a centralized Juvenile Assessment Center in Tampa, Florida on felony charges or misdemeanor firearm charges are the target group for this project. Youths whose preliminary screening results indicate potential problems needing in-depth assessment will be randomly assigned to two experimental groups: Intensive Case Management or Business as Usual. Approximately 324 White male, 216 Black male, 108 White female and 72 Black female youths will be involved in the study. Extensive demographic, substance use, psychosocial functioning and official record data will be collected over a four year period. Numerous project research and practitioner reports will be prepared. The data will enable us to test a number of hypotheses regarding the usefulness of the innovative service linkage strategy in improving service connection and utilization, as well as the impact of service experiences on improvements in the youths' functioning over time. The project's findings will improve our understanding of how high risk youths and their families can be involved in needed care.