Since 2002, Health & Medicine has worked to address the health issues of court involved youth in the juvenile justice system.  Although this work impacts youth in many parts of the juvenile justice system in Illinois, we have paid particular attention to the issues facing youth housed at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center and in the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice’s Youth Centers at Warrenville and Pere Marquette, as well as youth who are sentenced to Cook County Juvenile Probation.  The activities of Health & Medicine’s Court Involved Youth Project, described below, have shown to be well-respected and influential forces for change.
The overarching goal of the Court Involved Youth Project is support the development of a juvenile justice system that contributes to the comprehensive, positive development of court involved youth.  To accomplish our goal, the Project collaborates with a broad based group of community and systems partners to advocate for policies, services, and programming that are effective because they are gender responsive, trauma informed and culturally competent.

Recent accomplishments of the Project have been to:
•    develop and implement comprehensive policy recommendations to improve the health of court involved girls
•    support the training of line staff at the JTDC and IYC-Warrenville and IYC-Pere Marquette in gender and trauma responsive approaches
•    work with JTDC policy staff to add sexual orientation and gender identity to their non-discrimination policy
•    develop a systemic and sustainable approach to the provision of purposeful and effective programs for court involved youth
•    advocate that an Office of Girls and Gender be established at the JTDC
•    train system partners on issues relating to the competent care and custody of court involved LGBTQ youth
•    convene the Court Involved LGBTQ Youth Task Force and coordinate its work

Because the activities focus on court involved youth, many of the issues that arise cut across the various populations in the juvenile justice system.  The fact that the majority of youth involved in the system is African American and Latino is one example.  The fact that the majority of youth experience some form of trauma before entering the system is another.

Alongside the range of shared experiences of court involved youth are important distinctions.  Accounting always for the issues that contribute to the youth’s shared experiences (e.g. racism, poverty), Health & Medicine’s Court Involved Youth Project focuses its activities on the specific needs of youth in three subpopulations: girls, boys and LGBTQ youth.

Project Focus: Girls
Why focus on girls?

Because research documents the pathway from victimization and trauma in the lives of girls to mental disorders, substance abuse, and court involvement and incarceration.

Because more than half of incarcerated girls in Illinois have experienced physical or sexual abuse at least once in their lives, and more than 90% of the girls know the person who abused them.

Because more than 2/3rds of female detainees at JTDC meet diagnostic criteria for one or more psychiatric disorders.

Because rates of arrest and incarceration of girls, including girls ages 10-12, are increasing.

Because girls’ distinct health needs have been ignored by the system.

Court Involved Girls Advocates Group
To meet the goals of the Health of Court Involved Girls Project, Health & Medicine regularly convenes a group of policy makers, city and state officials, civil rights organizations, direct caregivers, academicians, court officers and staff, health and community organizations.  This multidisciplinary and cross-agency Court Involved Girls Advocates Group (Advocates Group) includes representatives from Music Theatre Workshop, the Chicago Department of Public Health, Cook County Juvenile Probation, Chicago Women’s Health Center, John Howard Association, ACLU-Illinois, Metropolis 2020, Mental Health America of Illinois, the Chicago Girls Coalition, the Child Care Association of Illinois, Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers, the North Lawndale Juvenile Justice Collaborative,  and the Cook County Juvenile Court, among others.

Project Focus: Boys

Project Activities

Health & Medicine, in partnership with Region V of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on HIV/AIDS, developed You Matter, Health Matters: the JTDC Boy’s Collaborative Health Project, a collaboration of community-based organizations interested in providing health-centered workshops to boys and young men detained at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC).

The Collaborative Health Project begins by training JTDC staff after which the community organizations staff present a series of workshops to detained youth.  The theme for the pilot run of the Collaborative Health Project is Respect Yourself, Respect Others and the topics to be presented include:
1. Anatomy/Safe Sex
2. HIV/STI Prevention (someone to share personal story)
3. Substance Abuse
4. LGBTQ 101
5. Domestic Violence/Healthy Relationships
6. Parenting
7. Substance Abuse

Project Focus: LGBTQ Youth

Why LGBTQ Youth?

Recent groundbreaking research conducted by Dr. Angela Irvine, Ceres Policy Research, reveals that 15 percent of a national sampling of court involved youth identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, which supports advocates’ long-held beliefs that youth who identify or are perceived to be lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system.  Dr. Irvine is collaborating with Health & Medicine and our partners in the JTDC to conduct her research in Cook County, the largest free-standing juvenile detention facility in the country.

Dr. Irvine’s research also demonstrates that LGBTQ youth experience high rates of trauma and victimization before entering the system. This is so because many young people who come out to their families are made to leave their homes, become homeless (either living on the street or “couch surfing”), turn to criminal enterprises (e.g. theft, drug sales, sex trade) to support themselves, and are arrested, detained, and incarcerated.
The juvenile justice system is ill-equipped at best to meet the needs of LGBTQ youth.  At the JTDC, policies and procedures, including standard non-discrimination policies, are not enumerated or are not in place at all.  Staff are not trained in youth development and its relationship to sexual orientation or gender identity, correct and appropriate terminology, healthy same-sex sexuality and relationships, or the issues facing LGBTQ youth generally.  Medical and mental health services and programming do not take into account the fact that there are LGBTQ youth in the population who have distinct needs and face distinct challenges.  As a result, at the JTDC, LGBTQ youth often are inappropriately isolated for “their protection,” needlessly placed on the medical unit, directed by staff to conform to the Bible, called names, bullied, and harassed.

Project Activities

In October 2010, in partnership with Cook County Juvenile Probation, the Project convened the Cook County Court Involved LGBTQ Task Force (Task Force) to address the needs of court involved youth in Cook County who identify as or are perceived to be LGBTQ.  Its key stakeholders – judges, attorneys, probation officers, secure facilities’ staff, community based providers and advocates – are committed to (1) researching and adapting promising practices relating to effective, professional and sensitive policies, training, programs and services and (2) coordinating the implementation of these practices across the system in furtherance of creating and sustaining a system that supports all youth.

Currently, the Task Force is working to develop and advocate for passage of policies addressing the needs and rights of LGBTQ in all parts of the system.  The Task Force is also developing a series of curricula for use in training systems staff about issues relating to the LGBTQ youth in their case.

The Task Force is receiving national attention. View the May 4, 2011 article in The Public Intellectual