Every year, thousands of the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable, under-resourced children and families appear before the Massachusetts Juvenile Courts.  Over 70% face a combination of mental health and behavioral problems, medical issues, substance use, histories of abuse and neglect, learning disabilities, and acculturation stressors.

The Juvenile Court Clinics were established with the statewide Juvenile Court in 1993. These Clinics are unique in their specialized capacity to help high acuity court-involved children and families.

Today the Juvenile Court Clinics are in crisis. Cuts from the Legislature’s appropriations in both FY25 and FY26 have reversed years of progress. In FY28 the Juvenile Court Clinics urgently need restoration of baseline funding and adjustment to meet FY28 increased needs.  

MAJCC’s FY28 Advocacy agenda’s focus is to secure essential funding to meet the unprecedented needs of the under-resourced children and families we serve. These include:

• Children suffering from trauma due to parental/caregiver neglect and abuse, violence in their schools, and/or are at-risk for sexual exploitation.
• Children exposed to cyberbullying, inappropriate content and exploitation through the Internet, resulting in a significant increase in suicidality and treatment-resistant depression and anxiety. 
• Children with substance use problems requiring emergency out-of-home care through a court order or specialized help to access limited community-based outpatient services.
• Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder requiring specialized assessment to understand behaviors that could impact their involvement with the juvenile justice system. 
• Children who are Dual-Status Youth, involved in both the child welfare and the juvenile justice systems.
• Children with multiple, complex issues who fall between the cracks of state agencies.
• Children with Child Requiring Assistance matters who struggle with debilitating behavioral and mental health issues and have not improved despite intensive, comprehensive home-based services.
• Children who do not meet criteria for Competence to Stand Trial and require repeat evaluations. 
• Children who are behaviorally challenged or medically complicated awaiting in-patient care.
• Parents before the Juvenile Court due to neglect and abuse of their children.
• Parents who require advocacy and guidance to access services specific to their family’s unique needs.

The Role of the Juvenile Court Clinics

Psychologists, social workers, and other mental health professionals at the Juvenile Court Clinics provide court-ordered evaluations, interventions and referral services. All clinicians must be specially trained and credentialed by DMH. Since the pandemic, clinicians have been trained to provide all services via telehealth where appropriate. The Juvenile Court Clinics assist the Court in balancing the interests among child- or family-centered interventions, public safety, and protection of children from abuse and neglect, while providing the following:

• Emergency evaluations of children and adolescents in crisis—for example, an evaluation of a 15-year-old boy who threatened to kill himself while at Court, or a Section 35 evaluation of a 17-year-old girl brought in for an emergency substance use evaluation because of her opioid abuse while on the run.
• Comprehensive psychosocial evaluations—such as evaluating a 14-year-old boy with an extensive trauma history who injured another youth.  During the evaluation, the clinician also works with the family, school and child-serving agencies in the community to seek appropriate treatment and service planning. 
• Specialized evaluations and consultations in Care and Protection cases, including parenting capacity, mental health concerns, guardianship and competency of a parent to assist counsel in court proceedings. 
• Evaluations to assess Competency to Stand Trial—for example, an evaluation of whether a 12-year-old boy, charged with assault and battery after he injured a classmate in a fight at school, could assist his lawyer in participating in his defense.  The need for competency evaluations is rising as more youth come before the Juvenile Court with mental health issues, cognitive limitations and special needs as well as immaturity.
• Specialized risk assessments and evaluations of substance use, sexual offending, aggressive behavior and fire setting—behavior typically related to a range of complex underlying problems. All evaluations include recommendations for appropriate treatment.
• Consultation to the Court and the community—Consultation to families, schools, community providers, state agencies, and others regarding how the complex and rapidly changing service delivery systems may prevent a child’s further court involvement or the need for more intrusive and extensive interventions.
• Participation in diversionary, community-based initiatives—for example, in the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), Dual-Status Youth (DSY) Programs, and System of Care (SOC) meetings. 
• Case management services—such as helping the Spanish-speaking family of a 13-year-old boy with chronic truancy navigate waitlists and other barriers to services such as language capacity, transportation and housing.

Cost Benefits of Juvenile Court Clinics

• Research indicates that saving one high-risk youth from heavy drug use, dropping out of school, and a life of crime saves society an average of $5 Million. Providing the Juvenile Court with recommendations for structured, community-based treatment and services that maintain public safety can prevent unnecessary detention, which has been estimated to cost the Commonwealth up to $193,278 annually per juvenile. 

• Mental illnesses are serious medical illnesses that fall along a continuum of severity. Without treatment the consequences of mental illness for the individual and society are staggering—unnecessary disability, unemployment, substance use, homelessness, inappropriate incarceration, suicide, and wasted lives—costing the US economy $282 Billion annually in adverse economic outcomes, according to a 2024 Yale analysis of the economic toll of mental illness. 

             *An individual exhibiting behavioral or psychological symptoms that impact multiple life areas or create distress.

**A mental disorder so severe that an individual’s ability to perform routine daily tasks is significantly impaired.