From Court to the Community: Improving Access to Evidence-Based Treatment for Underserved Justice-Involved Youth At-Risk for Suicide

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PROJECT SUMMARY Justice-involved youth (JIY) living in the community experience disproportionately high rates of suicidal thoughts and behavior (STB) and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) compared to adolescents in the general population. Many JIY lack access to evidence-based screening and treatment for NNSI and STB, thereby increasing the overall risk of suicide in this population. Recent efforts have focused on increasing access to STB and NSSI screening for JIY while in secure detention facilities or upon initial contact with diversion programming. However, similar efforts have not been made to ensure that JIY continue to receive routine access to evidence-based suicide screenings served by clinicians in their communities The current supplement aims to expand our current parent project to also 1) assess the acceptability and feasibility of implementing routine suicide screening in community mental agencies serving JIY and 2) assess provider- and organizational-level factors that promote the sustainability of routine suicide screening in community mental agencies serving JIY. Data collection for the supplemental aims will occur as part of the parent project’s stepped wedge trial. In addition to training providers in evidence-based treatment for suicidal behavior as proposed in the parent project, we will also train providers in evidence-based screening for NSSI and STB utilizing the Columbia Suicide Severity Screener or the Ask Suicide-Screening Questions and augmented by select questions from the Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behavior Interview. As with the treatment training protocol, we will track providers’ initial use of the screening protocol and the sustainability of screening over the duration of the parent project’s stepped wedge trial. The proposed supplemental aims are within the scope of the current project and are in line with the original RFA through which the parent project is funded (RFA-MH-21-187: Systems-Level Risk Detection and Interventions to Reduce Suicide, Ideation, and Behaviors in Youth from Underserved Populations). In line with the original RFA, the proposed supplemental aims focus on improving the detection of SIB in a population of marginalized and underserved youth (i.e., justice-involved youth).