Children and Youth Services Review

Accurate and timely intervention in the justice system is particularly critical in rural communities, given documented barriers to accessible, evidence-based services for youth. As youth in the juvenile justice system have a high prevalence of behavioral health needs, accurate assessment of those needs is a critical first step in linking youth to appropriate care. The goal of the current study is to examine the reliability of a brief assessment (the Brief Problem Checklist [BPC]) among a sample of 222 justice-involved youth and their caregivers who primarily reside in rural communities in the United States...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105277.].

Over the past several decades researchers have documented disproportionality for Black families across multiple decision-making points within the child welfare system. Yet, few studies have examined how specific state policies may impact disproportionality across decision points. The racial disproportionality index (RDI) was calculated for Black children in each state and Washington DC ( N = 51) based on the proportion of children who were received a referral to CPS, a substantiated investigation, or entered foster care...

The rate of child abuse has sharply increased worldwide, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the media's role in addressing child abuse cases is crucial, several international and formal organizations have established child abuse reporting guidelines. This study investigated how closely journalists follow reporting guidelines in addressing child abuse cases. Five major Korean presses and 189 articles from January 1, 2018, to January 31, 2021, were selected using the keyword "child abuse." Each article was analyzed using a guideline framework consisting of 13 items regarding the five principles of the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare and Central Child Protection Agency reporting guidelines...

Welcome Family is a universal, short-term nurse home visiting program designed to promote optimal maternal and infant physical and mental well-being and provide an entry point into the early childhood system of care to all families with newborns up to 8 weeks old living in defined communities in Massachusetts. The present study examines whether: 1) Welcome Family meets its goal of successfully connecting families to two early childhood programs-evidence-based home visiting (EBHV) and early intervention (EI)-relative to families with similar background experiences who do not participate in Welcome Family, and 2) whether these impacts are conditional on families' race and ethnicity and their primary language-two characteristics that are related to structural racism and health inequities...

Recently, scholars have placed increasing effort on better understanding the unique needs of youth involved in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. This study drew from the Developmental Cascade of Multisystem Involvement Framework to examine group differences in trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and offending among youth solely involved in the juvenile justice system and youth with varying degrees of dual-system involvement, including crossover youth (i.e., youth with a history of maltreatment and offending regardless of system involvement), dual-contact youth (i...

State and local educational agencies are grappling with growing mental health needs among school-aged children that intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic. We undertake a case study of the experiences of one state, Tennessee, to examine the landscape of mental health interventions that are being deployed and to illuminate contextual factors that can support their implementation or exacerbate state and local challenges in addressing children's fast-rising mental health needs. We begin with an examination of the knowledge base on interventions and approaches that are commonly employed in K-12 schools to address children's mental health needs, including in Tennessee, with the aim to identify notable gaps in what we understand about their implementation and impacts on student outcomes...

This study assessed secondary outcomes of Connecting, a low-cost, self-directed, family-based prevention program for families with youth placed in their care by state child welfare agencies. Families caring for youth aged 11 to 15 years within Washington State were recruited and randomly assigned into either the Connecting program ( n = 110) or a treatment-as-usual control condition ( n = 110). The program included a 10-week sequence of self-directed family activities and DVDs with video clips. Survey data were collected from caregivers and youth at baseline, immediately post-intervention, and at 12 and 24 months post-intervention; placement data was collected from the child welfare department as well...

This study examined differences in both average and variability in daily adolescent food insecurity, by adolescents' levels of economic disadvantage and race/ethnicity. We used data from a 14-day ecological momentary assessment of 395 adolescents enrolled in public schools in North Carolina. Each evening, adolescents were asked questions about that day's food insecurity. Economically disadvantaged adolescents reported both higher average food insecurity and more day-to-day variability in food insecurity than non-economically disadvantaged adolescents...

It is very important to show awareness in order to reduce the health risks posed by pandemics. In Turkey, primary and secondary schools, which were kept closed until September 2021 due to COVID-19, were reopened and students were expected to show awareness to avoid contamination. Therefore, it became even more important to reveal the awareness level of these students. In this study, it was aimed to develop a tool that could measure the awareness of the pandemic in general, and the awareness of COVID-19 in particular, of 8-12 year-old students...

The COVID-19 pandemic has been highly disruptive for college students and has altered their living, learning, and working environments. COVID-19-related financial impact, access to needed resources, and psychological impacts are reported amongst college students, though research has yet to examine how severity and type of impact varies by student. This study investigated how undergraduate college students were impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic regarding finances, access to needed resources, and psychological well-being, and explored outcomes associated with patterns of perceived impact...

The demand for After-School Programs (ASP) has increased in the last decades, mainly related to the reduced availability of the family to take care of children in the after-school period. This study aimed to compare two groups of children who attend (ASP group) or not ASP (comparison group), from the first and second grade, regarding their social skills and behavior problems. Teachers assessed 120 children (half by group) across three times (one before and two during the COVID-19 pandemic). A pattern of ASP attendance was determined, in order to understand whether ASP attendance influences social skills and behavior problems...

The COVID-19 outbreak beginning in 2019 has created a challenging period for families who have children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The purpose of this study was to examine parents' perceptions about the consequences of the pandemic on their child who has ASD and parents' concerns and resources during the pandemic. Data was collected between July to November 2020 from U.S. parents who have at least one child with ASD between 3 and 21 years old. An online survey, consisting of 88 items, was developed and distributed online in newsletters and Twitter pages of several ASD organizations, and various caregiving support groups on Facebook...

BACKGROUND: Extant literature has primarily employed linear models to estimate the average effect of spanking on children. Less is known about child and parent characteristics that may predict differential risks of children's exposure to spanking (i.e., pre-treatment heterogeneity) and the effect of spanking on child outcomes that may differ by the propensity for spanking (i.e., post-treatment heterogeneity). OBJECTIVE: The present study examines pre- and post-treatment heterogeneity in the association between maternal spanking at child age 3 and subsequent household Child Protective Services (CPS) involvement that were reported by mothers between child ages 3 to 5...

Despite the growing importance of the multidimensional methods of assessing child poverty, few studies in the U.S. have applied a rights-based approach to examining child deprivation. This study examines multidimensional child deprivation using eight dimensions and twelve indicators based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Using a sample of children at age nine from the fifth wave of the Future of Families and Child Well-being Study, this study applied the multiple overlapping deprivation analysis (MODA), a comprehensive analytic method to assess the multidimensionality of child deprivation and to provide a detailed picture of material and social forms of deprivation among the U...

We conducted this first ever study comparing reports of custodial grandchildren's (CG) psychological difficulties obtained jointly from 163 custodial grandmothers (CGM) and their CG between ages 6-12. Internalizing and externalizing difficulties were indicated by whether any of the corresponding scales on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ, reported by CGM) or Dominic Interactive (DI, reported by CG) reached the 90th percentile. Internalizing and externalizing difficulties were reported by informant types at rates higher than those typically observed in the general population, with externalizing difficulties being more prevalent among male CG...

Dual language learners (DLLs) - young children learning and developing in multiple languages - make up nearly one-third of the population of public preschool attendees in the U.S. Yet despite the large number of DLLs attending the nation's largest public preschool programs - Head Start and state-funded public pre-k - little is known about DLL families' patterns of selection into each program, nor about the relative benefits of each program for DLLs' early learning. The present study uses contemporary data from a mixed-delivery system of public preschool in Tulsa, Oklahoma to examine predictors of attending Head Start or Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) pre-k, as well as whether program type is associated with differences in DLLs' kindergarten entry skills...

The extent to which service providers across systems identify and assess potentially sex trafficked youth is understudied. The purpose of this study is to determine whether and how providers observe relevant indicators and assess for sex trafficking risk among minors (ages 12-17), young adults (ages 18-29), and families of minors. A cross-sectional, web-based survey was disseminated to service providers, who represented child welfare, youth justice, and social services (e.g. runaway youth, sexual violence), in a region of a Midwestern state (United States)...

BACKGROUND: Students who have experienced adversity tend to demonstrate poorer academic outcomes than their non-maltreated peers. Academic engagement, a multidimensional, motivational construct, associated with a myriad of positive academic outcomes is an important academically-related mechanism that can be leveraged to improve the outcomes of this population. OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to better understanding of how engagement develops in the context of adversity by exploring the effects emotion regulation skills and parent-child relationships have on engagement development...

Little is known about the role of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis functioning for children's cognitive development, especially among vulnerable groups. The current study explores the relationship between diurnal cortisol slope and cognitive outcomes among children at the ages of 5 and 6 who have been maltreated as infants and involved with child protective services, using data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) I (N=158). Multiple regression analyses showed that a greater decline in salivary cortisol from morning to evening was positively associated with scores on applied problems and expressive communication, even after adjustment for confounding...