Legal and behavioral science scholars examine the significance of the recent changes in laws affecting child and youth services and the conflicts those changes have engendered. Providers of child and youth services now can have at their fingertips the most recent information on changes in the law related to consent to treatment by children, special education, child abuse policy, procedural reform in divorce custody resolution, and juvenile justice reform. Some of the timely issues addressed in this highly acclaimed volume include the fall of the rehabilitative ideal in the juvenile justice system, the increasing concern for juvenile's procedural rights, child custody disputes, and laws regulating educational and treatment services. Legal Reforms Affecting Child and Youth Services is an essential volume for providers of services in education, pediatrics, mental health, juvenile justice, and child welfare. The authors integrate legal analyses of key concepts with discussion of potential behavioral science contributions to formulation and implementation of legal reforms. In each instance, the implications of these reforms for service delivery systems are explored with attention to gaps in available research and ambiguities in the existing law.

Adolescence is a distinct, yet transient, period of development between childhood and adulthood characterized by increased experimentation and risk-taking, a tendency to discount long-term consequences, and heightened sensitivity to peers and other social influences. A key function of adolescence is developing an integrated sense of self, including individualization, separation from parents, and personal identity. Experimentation and novelty-seeking behavior, such as alcohol and drug use, unsafe sex, and reckless driving, are thought to serve a number of adaptive functions despite their risks. Research indicates that for most youth, the period of risky experimentation does not extend beyond adolescence, ceasing as identity becomes settled with maturity. Much adolescent involvement in criminal activity is part of the normal developmental process of identity formation and most adolescents will mature out of these tendencies. Evidence of significant changes in brain structure and function during adolescence strongly suggests that these cognitive tendencies characteristic of adolescents are associated with biological immaturity of the brain and with an imbalance among developing brain systems. This imbalance model implies dual systems: one involved in cognitive and behavioral control and one involved in socio-emotional processes. Accordingly adolescents lack mature capacity for self-regulations because the brain system that influences pleasure-seeking and emotional reactivity develops more rapidly than the brain system that supports self-control. This knowledge of adolescent development has underscored important differences between adults and adolescents with direct bearing on the design and operation of the justice system, raising doubts about the core assumptions driving the criminalization of juvenile justice policy in the late decades of the 20th century. It was in this context that the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) asked the National Research Council to convene a committee to conduct a study of juvenile justice reform. The goal of Reforming Juvenile Justice: A Developmental Approach was to review recent advances in behavioral and neuroscience research and draw out the implications of this knowledge for juvenile justice reform, to assess the new generation of reform activities occurring in the United States, and to assess the performance of OJJDP in carrying out its statutory mission as well as its potential role in supporting scientifically based reform efforts.

Here is a detailed look at the design, development, and successful implementation of a utilization-focused, computerized information system in an agency serving children, youths, and families. This important book describes Boysville of Michigan?s effort to create a model of information utilization designed specifically for social service settings, and details their unique attempt to integrate information technology and social work practice at every organizational level. Information Systems in Child, Youth, and Family Agencies covers Boysville?s five-year endeavor to design, implement, and evaluate BOMIS (Boysville Management Information System), their computerized management information, program evaluation, and clinical decision-making system. The book shows how practice-based research can contribute to broader practice-relevant knowledge for the field in general as well as for the sponsoring agency. It contains collaborative contributions by practitioners, managers, administrators, and researchers who were directly involved in the development and utilization of the information system. Many of the problems Boysville solved while implementing BOMIS are also likely to face information specialists and social work administrators in other agencies who are trying to integrate information technology with the practice needs of direct service workers. This in-depth case study helps them discover some of the ins and outs of setting up their own information system. Information Systems in Child, Youth, and Family Agencies is divided into three sections. The first describes the underlying theoretical assumptions of the Boysville system and the organizational structures and processes that translate these assumptions into practice. This section is written largely by Boysville?s research staff. The next set of chapters, written primarily by Boysville?s practice and administrative staff, illustrates the programmatic uses of information provided by BOMIS. The last section illustrates how BOMIS data can serve internal organizational purposes as well as reflect on broader issues in the field and is written by members of Boysville?s National Research Advisory Committee. Unique in its collaborative authorship (by practitioners and researchers) and its dual focus (for agency decision-making and for knowledge development), this book is especially helpful for managers and administrators interested in promoting computer-based practice research in their agencies, for research consultants, and for applied researchers in the human services.

This timely book demonstrates the value and relevance of family-oriented programs in dealing with problems experienced by children and adolescents. Experts provide salient guidelines and recommendations for involving the family in the diagnosis and treatment of problems. In addition to providing current reviews of research, this practical volume describes various skill-building programs and therapeutic interventions that can be used in a variety of program and treatment settings. Designed for helping professionals who work with children and youth, Family Perspectives in Child and Youth Services will be most valuable for practitioners in social work, psychology, psychiatry, and child development.

From the preface: "The issues around which the juvenile justice system is centered frequently evoke anger and impatience. These emotions arise because the issues are so important and movement concerning the same issues seems nonexistent. The persons who are involved with those same issues, however, elicit respect and, often, affection. The Executive Sessions of the Kennedy School of Government combine the two elements - issues and persons - with the stated goal of advancing fruitful and effective public policy. The Executive Session on the Future of the Juvenile Justice System regularly brought to the same table, over a period of almost two years, persons who understand the issues well, who are professionally and personally invested in certain positions on the issues, and who were willing to engage themselves fully in the exchange of ideas, both theoretical and practical, which an Executive Session demands. This book is one of the products of that process. The editor, who chaired the meetings of the Session, takes certain positions regarding the future of the juvenile justice system and what the system should look like ten years from now." 1

The Anthropology of Child and Youth Care Work presents and illustrates an anthropological model of child and youth care work and explores the associated benefits of such an approach. Author Rivka A. Eisikovits’model enhances workers’on-the-job effectiveness with clients and co-workers and improves intra- and inter-organizational communication with other human service providers. This book prepares child and youth care providers, educators, researchers, administrators, consultants, supervisors, and organizers to become change-sensitive, process-oriented observers, analysts, and co-designers of the systems within which they function and those with which they interact, such as families, communities, and referral agencies. The model presented in The Anthropology of Child and Youth Care Work offers readers an organic continuum between everyday work experience and conceptual practice, organizing such haphazard events into a systemized body of knowledge. Although providing specific skills, it is more than a technology--it is a humanistic worldview from which a humanistic practice philosophy can be derived. Specific points of this philosophy that child and youth care professionals learn about include: the cultural learning theory ethnographic inquiry and description staff-client relations the sick-role trap microcultural events in residential settings the relationship between treatment and education subsystems a heuristic approach to service delivery family cultural ethnography for cultural sensitization Eisikovits’anthropologic perspective broadens the horizons of child and youth care work and equips practitioners to transcend narrowly drawn organizational boundaries. By presenting caregivers as cultural translators between their clients and various decision-making forums, The Anthropology of Child and Youth Care Work prepares them to face the challenges of a dynamic emergent profession and helps them perform successfully in a rapidly changing social context that requires constant assessment of needs and evaluation of performance.