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Welcome to the new home of the Michigan
Association for Children with Emotional Disorders. Check back often for exciting new updates
to the MACED website. |
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Juvenile justice project
update For the past several years, Association staff, in
cooperation with volunteer mental health professionals and pro bono counsel,
has assisted with cases of children with emotional disorders who are charged
with offenses in the juvenile justice system.
Mental health treatment is often not provided in juvenile justice
facilities or, when provided, it is not of the type or intensity that is
needed for the child. There are no accommodations
made for children with disabilities who are “stuck” in these placements. The Association established a juvenile justice
project in October 2002 to assist children with serious emotional disorders
who are charged with juvenile offenses.
The project endeavors to provide legal representation to juveniles in
this predicament, and to arrange for mental health evaluations and expert
opinions in an effort to divert the juvenile from the criminal system to the
mental health system. Staff is
currently representing scores of children faced with charges in the juvenile
justice system in an attempt to prevent commitment to correctional facilities
and to obtain needed health care for them.
Eventually, the project will recruit pro bono attorneys and provide
training in development of mental health defenses for the defense bar to
utilize. During the summer of 2003, staff
and Meg Davis, a third-year law student at the University of Michigan Law
School and Bergstrom Fellow in child advocacy, have been working on several
aspects of the juvenile justice project.
First, MACED has continued to explore the effect of positive peer
culture on children with emotional disorders.
Most juvenile placements practice “positive peer culture” that is
often injurious to children with disabilities, who may be unable to conform
to rigorous point systems. Concerned that Michigan juvenile facilities are
structuring programming around positive peer culture programs, MACED staff is
surveying all Michigan juvenile facilities in order to measure the prevalence
of these programs. We have requested information on facility program
components, including mental health services, the use of positive peer
culture, point systems, seclusion and restraint, and behavior modification
programs. The information received is providing MACED with a better
understanding of what is happening inside these facilities. Using both this
information and academic literature,
staff will develop a model brief for use by defense attorneys against
the use of positive peer culture, and for use in public policy advocacy.
continue |
