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Mental Health Assessment of Juveniles

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Handbook of Juvenile Forensic Psychology and Psychiatry

Abstract

Historically, youth presenting with mental health disorders in the juvenile justice system have posed many challenges to those who adjudicate, care for, educate and provide direct services for them. Until recently, accurate descriptions, including the number of youth with mental health disorders in the juvenile justice system have been vague. Incomplete and poor sampling techniques, unsound methodological practices, unstandardized and unconventional assessment methods, and disagreement regarding the definitions of mental disorders have contributed to the ambiguity surrounding descriptions of this segment of the population (Isaacs 1992; Cocozza 1992; Shufelt and Cocozza 2006). Unfortunately, the absence of and disparity of any existing information has impeded the provision of mental health services to youth.

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Correspondence to Cynthia Morgan-D’Atrio PhD .

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Morgan-D’Atrio, C. (2012). Mental Health Assessment of Juveniles. In: Grigorenko, E. (eds) Handbook of Juvenile Forensic Psychology and Psychiatry. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0905-2_12

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