Children who come to the attention of the juvenile justice system are a challenging and underserved population. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network has developed resources to help juvenile justice professionals understand and provide trauma-focused services to these youth. These resources include tools and materials for building skills and increasing knowledge about childhood trauma to help judges, attorneys, law enforcement, probation officers, frontline residential staff, mental health personnel, and caregivers understand and respond to the needs of traumatized children. In addition to the NCTSN resources highlighted below, Justice System Professionals can learn more about creating trauma-informed Justice Systems in the Trauma-Informed Care section of this website.
Helps programs who work with justice-involved youth better understand the steps to take to recognize and respond to the trauma-related needs of youth, family members, and staff working in the justice system.
Provides judges with useful questions and guidelines to help make decisions based on the emerging scientific findings in the traumatic stress field. These bench cards assist judges and court-appointed professionals doing mental health assessment of children.
Provides an overview for juvenile justice staff on how to work towards creating a trauma-informed juvenile justice residential setting.
Describes how young children, school-age children, and adolescents react to traumatic events and offers suggestions on how parents and caregivers can help and support them.
Defines child traumatic stress. This fact sheet gives an overview of trauma, describes traumatic stress symptoms, and ways children may be impacted.
Provides a juvenile justice system with a framework to examine, review, and rate day-to-day operations with a set of benchmarks to evaluate to what extent court operations reflect the content, process, and systems-level procedures reflected in each essential element.
Provides juvenile defense attorneys with knowledge about trauma, the definition of trauma-informed legal advocacy, the impact of trauma exposure on child development, and effects of trauma on the attorney-client relationship.
Details the results of a nationwide survey of probation officers. This survey looks at what probation officers know about trauma, how best to collaborate with them, and what products they would like to meet their needs with respect to trauma-informed practices.
Provides child welfare attorneys with knowledge about trauma, practice tips for incorporating trauma-informed practices into legal representation, and resources to assist in the representation of clients with histories of trauma.
Delineates the path from complex trauma exposure to involvement in the juvenile justice system.
Provides information for staff in residential treatment centers on how to understand behavior through a trauma lens.
Details the importance of a holistic, multidisciplinary, multi-level approach to addressing the needs of youth with complex trauma in residential treatment settings.