Juvenile Justice

Mental Health Information

Mental Health Diagnoses among Juveniles — Fiscal Year 2008

The chart above represents 2,169 juveniles who were formally involved with Juvenile Justice between July 1, 2007, and June 30, 2008. This includes youth who were institutionalized or had been placed on probation. Juveniles in the "primary diagnosis" category had received at least one primary diagnosis of a mental health disorder.

Mental Health Clinicians

The Division’s mental health clinicians are located in many areas throughout the state, and continue to provide a crucial service to both residents and staff. Most recently, they completed the suicide prevention training curriculum and are providing this training to all facility staff in an ongoing manner.

The Division is working to standardize mental health service delivery in all facilities. In collaboration with the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority two new mental health clinician positions at Anchorage’s McLaughlin Youth Center were established. In addition, the Legislature added funding for three additional mental health clinicians, which will bring DJJ MHC services to both the Kenai Peninsula and Mat-Su Youth Facilities in FY09. These additional positions will be very helpful in providing critically needed mental health services to youth in the care of the division.

Obtaining appropriate services for juveniles identified as delinquent but also experiencing significant mental health issues remains a concern. Juvenile Justice currently has mental health clinicians in facilities in Nome, Fairbanks, Bethel, Juneau, Anchorage and Ketchikan, with mental health clinician positions to be added to the facility staff in Kenai and Mat-Su in FY09.

In Ketchikan, the provision of crisis stabilization services by the Ketchikan Regional Youth Facility allows for youth who are experiencing sub-acute crisis events to be placed in a safe environment with trained staff. This aids the youth and the family, as well as the state, by preventing the youth from having to access more costly in-patient services located outside the community. The Ketchikan facility is currently the only state-operated regional youth facility that serves youth experiencing a crisis in an open/unlocked mental health treatment unit (Crisis Stabilization Unit or CSU) in addition to a youth detention unit.

At the Bethel and Nome Youth facilities, working with families is a challenge for the mental health clinicians and staff since they are usually from outlying areas or different parts of the state.   With the use of Bring the Kids Home funding, the mental health clinicians have been able to arrange to have families come in a family therapy session as well as travel themselves to the villages to assist with transitioning youth back home. 

In Fiscal Year 2008, much work was done to develop the Fairbanks Juvenile Treatment Court in partnership with the community steering committee. We received funding from the Alaska Legislature for a second Juvenile Probation officer assigned to the Treatment Court and that position was filled. The court started in the fall of 2008 (FY09), and is a collaborative effort between the Alaska Court system, DJJ, the district attorney and public defender agencies. DJJ also participated in the design of the program evaluation that will eventually be used. The Juvenile Treatment Court is designed for early intervention in the supervision process, thereby avoiding escalation in the delinquent behaviors of the youth involved. The mental health probation officer is responsible for identifying and working with a specific population of youth who are experiencing mental health concerns and who have received a mental health diagnosis, with the goal of serving the youth in the community at a cost savings to the state.

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