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- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
Administration for Children and Families
This site provides information about resources for children, youth, and families, including child care, Head Start, child support enforcement, domestic violence services, runaway and homeless youth programs, child welfare services, and more.
Mental Health: The First Step to Well Being
This collection of articles from the National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth analyzes some of the most prominent mental health issues facing at-risk youth in order to provide youth workers with insight into the prevention and treatment of mental health challenges. Post-traumatic stress disorder, the risks and uses of psychotropic medications, and postpartum depression in teen mothers are discussed.
National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth (NCFY)
NCFY is a free information service for Community, organizations, and individuals interested in developing new and effective strategies for supporting young people and their families. Their website includes youth development resources, funding announcements for FYSB's programs, free publications, and a calendar of conferences and trainings.
Q&A: Helping Families Protect Themselves From Recurring Trauma
Produced by the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth, this interview with Laurel Kiser, of the University of Maryland’s Family-Informed Trauma Treatment Center, discusses the potential negative effects of anticipatory stress and highlights Strengthening Family Coping Resources, a multi-week program that Kiser and her colleagues facilitate that helps families deal with recurring stressors.
Improving Attachment Between Mothers and Children
This article describes a recent study on whether new mothers dealing with past trauma would be able to develop an attachment to their babies. If the mothers could develop an attachment, the study examined if addressing the mother’s issue would help with bonding. The results show that all the mothers in the study who were dealing with past trauma had trouble bonding with others and over 75% of the mothers with unresolved trauma had insecurely attached infants. The researchers found that being in the process of dealing with past trauma can help mothers form secure bonds with their children, despite the mothers themselves having difficulty attaching to others around them.
5 Tips for Providing Trauma-Informed Sex Education
This article highlights the work of two researchers who are pioneering changes in sex education that bridge the gap between sex education and trauma-informed care by better understanding how sex education could be more sensitive to students’ traumatic experiences. This article also offers tips, based on this research, for implementing a trauma informed approach to sex education.
Slideshow: 5 Collaborations to Ensure Trauma-Informed Care for Youth and Families
This slideshow highlights five types of professionals that runaway and homeless youth program managers can collaborate with to support youth who have experienced trauma.
Brief: Developing a Trauma-Informed Child Welfare System
This issue brief provides an overview of trauma and its effects, and describes some of the primary areas of consideration for state or county child welfare systems as they design and implement approaches that are more responsive to trauma.
Resource: Narrative Writing Exercises for Promoting Health Among Adolescents: Promises and Pitfalls
This resource describes a literature review that explores the potential mental health benefits and concerns of using narrative writing with youth and young adults.
Resource: Helping Youth Prevent Suicide Among Their LGBTQ Peers
This article highlights free resources educators and youth service providers can use to implement the Trevor Project’s Lifeguard Workshop, a program encouraging young people to be “lifeguards” for one another by having the knowledge to help in a crisis. Professionals can request a free, in-person workshop or use the resources highlighted in the article to create personalized trainings.
Resource: Integrating Medical and Mental Health Care for Teen Moms
This article describes the mental health challenges teen moms face and highlights a Denver-based program that integrates mental health screening and treatment into their existing medical care.
John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood
The John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood (the Chafee program) provides funding to support youth/ young adults in or formerly in foster care in their transition to adulthood. The program is funded through formula grants awarded to child welfare agencies in States (including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands) and participating Tribes. Chafee funds are used to assist youth/ young adults in a wide variety of areas designed to support a successful transition to adulthood. Activities and programs include, but are not limited to, help with education, employment, financial management, housing, emotional support and assured connections to caring adults. Specific services and supports are determined by the child welfare agency, vary by State, locality and agency, and are often based on the individual needs of the young person. Many State or local agencies contract with private organizations to deliver services to young people.
A Comparison of Four Restorative Conferencing Models
This Bulletin focuses on four restorative conferencing models: victim-offender mediation, community reparative boards, family group conferencing, and circle sentencing. It first describes each of the four restorative conferencing models, then compares and contrasts.
Behavioral Health Problems, Treatment, and Outcomes in Serious Youthful Offenders
This bulletin from OJJDP summarizes findings from analyses of data from the Pathways to Desistance study, which followed more than 1,300 serious youthful offenders for seven years after their court involvement. These analyses addressed the overlap of behavioral health problems and offending behavior (PDF, 16 pages), the care young people with disorders received while in juvenile justice settings, and the care received in the community upon their release. Implications for juvenile justice practice and policy and potential opportunities for system improvement are discussed.
Amber Alert: Best Practices
“AMBER Alert Best Practices,” published by the Department of Justice, discusses the most effective strategies that AMBER (America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) partners have provided for recovering missing children. It explains the history of the system, the role each partner plays in child recovery and how to use the resources provided as best as possible.
Balanced and Restorative Justice for Juveniles: A Framework for Juvenile Justice in the 21st Century
This document makes the case for a new mission for juvenile justice known as the "Balanced Approach," and advocates consideration of a new philosophical framework, "Restorative Justice," to guide broader policy development and reform in juvenile justice.
Alaska Native Tribal Courts Gain Right to Protect Women in Domestic Violence Cases
With the repeal of the “Alaska Exemption” from the 2013 Violence Against Women Act, Alaska Native communities will now be able to use their sovereign authority to protect women from domestic violence. This repeal was one of the recommendations in the recently released report, Ending Violence So Children Can Thrive (PDF, 258 pages) developed by the Advisory Committee of the Task Force on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence.
Aftercare Services
This Bulletin examines aftercare services that provide youth with comprehensive health, mental health, education, family, and vocational services upon their release from the juvenile justice system.
Changing Lives: Prevention and Intervention to Reduce Serious Offending
This bulletin provides a review of effective early childhood, juvenile, and early adulthood programs that mitigate risk factors for delinquency and have demonstrated measurable impacts on offending (PDF, 8 pages). These programs are grouped by family, school, peers, and community, individual, and employment.
Comprehensive Responses to Youth At Risk: Interim Findings From the SafeFutures Initiative
The SafeFutures initiative joins what we have learned from research about risk and protective factors with what we now know from experience about promising approaches to preventing and controlling delinquency, resulting in a continuum of care that responds to the needs of youth at critical stages in their development. This Summary describes the lessons learned over the initial 3 years of the initiative's implementation in three pilot sites.
Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act establishes the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (Council) as an independent body within the executive branch of the federal government. The Council's primary functions are to coordinate federal juvenile delinquency prevention programs, federal programs and activities that detain or care for unaccompanied juveniles, and federal programs related to missing and exploited children.
Disproportionate Minority Contact
This site provides information and resources focused on the disproportionate number of minority youth who come into contact with the juvenile justice system
Developmental Sequences of Girls’ Delinquent Behavior
As part of the Girls Study Group series, which was established to guide the development, testing, and implementation of strategies to prevent and intervene in girls’ delinquency, this bulletin synthesizes the methods, findings, and implications from a collaborative analysis of data that the Denver Youth Survey and the Fast Track Project collected on the developmental patterns of girls’ offending from childhood through adolescence.
Criminal Career Patterns
The National Institute of Justice and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention developed the bulletin, "Criminal Career Patterns" as part of the Justice Research Series. This bulletin describes criminal career patterns in adolescence and adulthood.
Desktop Guide to Quality Practice for Working With Youth in Confinement
This web-based guide offers facility leadership and staff who work with confined youth information on principles, concepts, and practices in use in custody facilities.