My focus throughout my internship this year has been within the topic of Multi-system youth. Multi system youth refer to those youth who are in the need of services from two or more of the following systems: child protective services, mental health and addictive services, developmental disabilities, and juvenile court. In early fall of 2015, we created a survey to send to the counties to gather data on youth in our system that are also involved in other systems (JJ, MH/BH, DD). We also gathered data from the metro counties on placement costs. We used this information to create a policy brief that I co-wrote. The brief was created to mostly inform the New Joint Legislator Committee on Multi-System Youth from a child welfare perspective.
We found 4 areas in which there is an impact on child protective services.
1. Many multi-system youth enter child protective services custody for other reasons than child abuse or neglect.
2. Some parents relinquish custody (give custody voluntarily) of their child for the sole purpose of securing treatment services.
3. High costs are associated with high intensity multi-system needs.
4. Multi-system youth in child protection custody are at greater risk of poor outcomes.
If interested, the brief can be found at http://www.pcsao.org/pdf/advocacy/MultiSystemYouthBriefPCSAO.pdf
First I want to say that I think it's awesome that you were able to do this in your placement. I saw the policy considerations section, but my question is...what is the impact of being involved in these various systems have on the youth themselves. I feel like these systems need to come together so that everyone is on the same page about how to best help these youth (like the first suggestion mentioned Wraparound services) because each of these systems has their own action plan and their own goal for the kid which can be overwhelming.
ReplyDeleteI see a lot of this in the school I am in. Most of the boys have behavior problems that stem from their mental health or development disabilities. They are young now but when they get older they are more than likely going to come in contact with the juvenile court. I am working with them to inform them of coping skills, anger management, and conflict resolution. Working to find the stem of any problem is hard but it helps because being in multi systems gets worse as they get older. On #2 I watched a movie were a man didn't have money to get services so he was willing to give up his rights to get services for his child. I don't think parents should have to do that. A lot of people don't get those services for their children because they aren't willing to give them up. So the child doesn't get the help they need and things don't get better. The government has a lot of things to work on.
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