Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) affect justice-involved youth at higher rates than the general population associated with delinquent behavior and recidivism (Abram et al., 2004). This trauma-informed project at the Alachua Regional Juvenile Detention Center is proposed as a solution to ACEs induced delinquent behavior and recidivism in justice-involved youth. Through education, therapy, and social support this program tries to mitigate the effects of ACEs and retraumatization, in justice-involved youth from 12 North Florida counties, while promoting healing and healthy forms of coping and communication that prevent and reduce ACEs in future generations. This all focusing on the tertiary level treatment of the public health framework of prevention, while actively feeding the primary level through the prioritization and standardization of trauma-informed care in detention centers with regular secondary level ACEs screenings. The program’s components address the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and institutional levels of the McLeroy social ecological model while utilizing the trauma-informed principles of safety, peer support, collaboration and mutuality, empowerment, and cultural competency (McLeroy et al., 1988). At the interpersonal level the project addresses the individual participants in the project through the conduction of the Positive Achievement Change Tool and subsequent individualized therapies. The interpersonal level is engaged through the social support relationships created between and among youth and program and center staff. Ultimately the project's aim is to transform the organizational characteristics, rules, and regulations for operating a juvenile detention center to be trauma-informed promoting resilience which directly addresses the institutional level of the McLeroy social ecological model.
References
Abram, K. M., Teplin, L. A., Charles, D. R., Longworth, S. L., McClelland, G. M., & Dulcan, M. K. (2004). Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Trauma in Youth in Juvenile Detention. Arch Gen Psychiatry, 61(4), 403-410. https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.61.4.403
McLeroy, K. R., Bibeau, D., Steckler, A., & Glanz, K. (1988). An ecological perspective on health promotion programs. Health Education Q, 15(4), 351-377. https://journals.sagepub.com/d...7/109019818801500401
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