“As Americans, we believe in taking practical, responsible approaches to rehabilitate youth in trouble with the law while keeping our communities safe. However, when children are involved in both our juvenile justice and child welfare systems – so-called “dual-status youth” or “crossover youth” — they have entered not one but two difficult mazes, each with a lot of entrances, but not many exits-and lots of dead ends.
“We need to redesign our juvenile justice and child welfare systems to eliminate the mazes by closing entrances and creating clear pathways out of the system, so that the youth who enter have the opportunity to exit and move on to thrive and contribute as active members of their communities.
“What federal initiatives exist to help jurisdictions do this? Get a quick overview in our new snapshot, “
Dual-Status Youth and Federal Initiatives,” which is chock full of useful information and additional resources.”
