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Juvenile probation officers (JPOs) are increasingly using risk/needs assessments to evaluate delinquency risk, identify criminogenic needs and specific responsivity factors, and use this information in case planning. Justice-involved youth are exposed to traumatic events and experience traumatic stress symptoms at a high rate; such information warrants attention during the case planning process. The extent to which JPOs identify specific responsivity factors, in general, and trauma history, specifically, when scoring risk/need assessments is understudied. In the current study, 147 JPOs reviewed case vignettes that varied by the adolescents' gender (male vs. female), traumatic event exposure (present vs. absent), and traumatic stress symptoms (present vs. absent), and then scored the YLS/CMI and developed case plans based on that information. JPOs who received a vignette that included trauma information identified a higher number of trauma-specific responsivity factors on the YLS/CMI. Despite an overall high needs match ratio (57.2%), few JPOs prioritized trauma as a target on case plans. The findings underscore the importance of incorporating trauma screening into risk/needs assessment and case planning. (PsycINFO Database Record

There is a dearth of research regarding the content and structure of juvenile predisposition psychological evaluations. Limited research suggests that key mental health domains are insufficiently represented and judges use evaluator recommendations regarding legal outcomes more often than clinical outcomes. Studies have not addressed whether content and/or structure of evaluations influence the use of evaluator recommendations by juvenile probation officers (JPOs). This study reviewed and rated the content and structure of juvenile predisposition psychological evaluations conducted in an East Coast state to identify evaluation characteristics that informed JPOs use of evaluation recommendations in disposition planning. Juvenile predisposition psychological evaluations (N = 150) were reviewed and coded on key variables (e.g., legal history, sociocultural factors, Forensic Mental Health Assessment-FMHA principles, use of empirically-supported tools). Multiple content areas including family history, drug and alcohol history, education history were included in the evaluations (ranging from 48 to 100 %); however, sufficient detail for content domains ranged from 10 to 76 %. Evaluator recommendations were incorporated in disposition plans 35 % of the time, regardless of evaluation content or sufficiency, with 70 % of accepted recommendations being mental health related. Although evaluations often included information covering multiple key content areas, there was significant variability in the amount of information provided. Inconsistent with prior research with judges, none of the variables of interest (presence and sufficiency of detail, well-justified and explained recommendations, adherence to FMHA principles) predicted use of evaluation recommendations by JPOs. Implications for quality assurance and training are discussed.