Youth Forensic Service
A service development for the central region has been the establishment of a Youth Forensic Service. The provision of services to Youth Courts has been welcomed and enthusiastically endorsed by Judge Andrew Becroft, the Principal Judge for the Youth Courts for New Zealand. It is of some significance that the Principal Judge has made specific comments on the development in the Central Region of the service to Youth Courts. The Youth Forensic Service provides a specialist mental health screening role in the courts and prisons, as well as offering advice and triage.
As well as the youth courts, in the central region there is also a youth unit within prison the Hawke's Bay prison, young women aged 17 and under in Arohata Prison, and the Lower North Youth Justice Facility (for remand and sentenced youth through the Youth Court) in Palmerston North. In these facilities, the Youth Forensic Service offers screening assessments, advice and mental health follow-up. This is provided by psychiatric, psychological and co-existing disorder staff.
International data suggests that the rate of mental illness within the incarcerated youth population is more than double that of the general adolescent population. There is also evidence that intensive interventions such as Multisystemic Therapy (MST) programmes can intervene successfully with at-risk youth even after they have begun offending. The Service is also currently involved providing forensic mental health services to the Lower North facility.
Youth Forensic Service developments need to include provision for multidisciplinary teams in the region in order to:
• Enhance the current service to the Youth Courts
• Provide a consultation/liaison service to the local youth mental health services and other agencies such as Child Youth &
Family Services
• Provide developmentally appropriate mental health and drug and alcohol services to the young people incarcerated in Youth
Offender Units within the adult prisons. This would also involve the establishment of a mental health screening tool.
• Consolidate the service provided to the Lower North Youth Justice Facility, based on the model of service to prisons, and also providing drug and alcohol services
• Provide treatment and case management for a small group of adolescents with complex mental health needs and high risk
offending behaviour, as well as community follow-up for those adolescents discharged from youth forensic inpatient facility.
A critical element in the Youth Forensic Service is the delivery of Youth Court liaison services. Currently the Youth Forensic Service has youth justice liaison nurses, drug & alcohol/co-existing disorder clinicians, psychologists, social workers in the central region. Court reports ordered in the Youth Court are completed by psychologists or psychiatrists. The service also provides a link between the central region's youth mental hHealth and alcohol and drug services and a brokerage role with community treatment services and statutory agencies.
Aims and objectives of the service provided to the Youth Courts are:
a) to identify and ensure all mental health referrals and Section 333 orders are triaged appropriately by a comprehensive
mental health screening process that will enable any immediate interventions that may be necessary;
b) to provide the court with guidance, recommendations and advice about mental health issues;
c) to enhance cost effectiveness and timeliness by ensuring that inappropriate orders for Section 333 reports are not made;
and finally
d) to ensure that young people with major mental illnesses or intellectual disabilities are dealt with appropriately within the
justice system and receive appropriate treatment.
The provision of specific inpatient beds for assessment and treatment and transfer from prison and the Lower North facility is an initiative under consideration by Te Korowai-Whāriki . Currently no such specialist inpatient youth forensic facility exists in New Zealand and young people are being held in inappropriate environments.