American Bar Association- Youth At Risk Initiative

Thursday, April 20 2006 administrator
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Announcing the 2006-07 American Bar Association Presidential Initiative for Youth at Risk

About the Initiative

Our nation's future is in the hands of today's youth, our most important asset. During the next bar year (2006-07), the American Bar Association will focus its resources on at-risk teens and a number of the legal issues that affect them.

Focuses of this initiative of 2006-07 ABA President Karen Mathis will be teenagers (13-19), and include:

3.  Enhancing Teen Access to Safe and Appropriate Prevention and Treatment Services.  Teens with emotional and behavioral problems must have better access to community-based mental health services and other programs that can help prevent their involvement with juvenile and criminal systems.  Because girls are entering the juvenile justice system in greater numbers, some expanded services must be gender-specific.  There are also family economic issues that must be addressed.  Parents without means often turn to the government or the courts for help in placing a severely-troubled youth, often relinquishing custody of the youth to the state.  Other families, of means, may pay large sums of money for placements of teens in private unregulated “therapeutic” residential facilities that may harm youth.  Lawyers should examine how law, policy, and enhanced legal representation can help assure youth have better access to services and aid to prevent their unnecessary placement in facilities that may injure them.

Support Changes in Law and Policy to Promote Positive Teen Outcomes

5. Prohibit operation of unlicensed, unregulated residential treatment facilities that operate programs whose efficacy has not been proven empirically, such as boot camps, tough love, and “scared straight” programs, and require the closing of such facilities.  The law should provide for such facilities to be replaced with: better access to preventative services, with a focus on family involvement and community-based resources, wherever possible; and carefully regulated “residential treatment facilities” that are reserved for youth whose dangerous behavior cannot be controlled except in a secure setting.

http://www.abanet.org/child/youthatrisk/home.shtml

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Areas of Research

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