Juvenile Forensic
Mental Health
Juvenile forensic psychological evaluations pose unique challenges to mental health professionals. Juvenile forensic examiners must possess a unique blend of expertise, including special training, knowledge, skill, and experience. It can be difficult to find professionals who possess the competencies to conduct high quality juvenile forensic mental health evaluations.
When mental health professionals practice in juvenile forensic contexts without adequate expertise in these areas, they risk making basic mistakes in their practice and offering erroneous information to the courts.
Juvenile forensic mental health examiners must possess adequate expertise in the following areas:
Forensic Assessment
Forensic evaluations are conducted specifically for use in court contexts and must reflect an understanding of relevant legal standards. They require unique perspective, practice standards, assessment methods, and communication skills when compared to mainstream clinical evaluations.
Child Development & Mental Health
Child clinical practice and "Developmental Psychopathology" are established specialty areas that require knowledge about the processes of child development, the unique complexities of how mental health problems present in youth, the ways development interacts with mental health concerns, and the unique strategies and tools used to assess youth.
Legal Systems
Legal systems are often foreign terrain to mental health professionals. To assist courts, juvenile forensic psychologists must understand the procedures and practices within the court and detention systems in which they work, as well as the services available to juveniles within the justice, mental health, and other related systems
Legal System-Involved Youth
Youth who become involved in justice settings often have experienced uniquely complex life circumstances, often involving various forms of trauma and adverse childhood experiences, showing unique patterns of development and mental health problems that must be well understood.