May 1, 2008

Building Multisystem Approaches in Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice

This paper by Denise Herz and Joseph Ryan was commissioned to inform participants of a Wingspread Conference that was held from May 7-9 2008, to outline a policy agenda to improve outcomes for the children and youth who cross over from child welfare to juvenile justice or from juvenile justice to the child welfare system. The report begins by summarizing existing research on the pathways that children follow from the child welfare into the juvenile justice system and the increased probabilities of engaging in delinquent behavior after experiencing abuse and/or neglect. Chapter 2 then summarizes existing research on the characteristics of these children and how they are handled in the juvenile justice system. Chapter 3 identifies the jurisdictions that have done the best job of quantifying the number of youth known to both systems, and Chapter 4 discusses findings from a nationwide survey of State child welfare and juvenile justice agencies. The final chapter provides a brief synthesis of the information contained in the report to facilitate a more in depth exploration of its implications for policy development at the federal, State, and local level.