Although the burden of mental health disorders among youth involved with the juvenile justice system is high, few communities have effectively integrated mental health resources with law enforcement (Myers & Farrell, 2008). The city of Cambridge, Massachusetts has developed the Safety Net Collaborative, which is a multiagency integrated model of preventive services for at-risk youth involving mental health providers, police officers, schools, and the department of youth and families. There are 6,000 youth in the city's public schools under the local police jurisdiction. Youth are referred to this program by schools, courts, and parents. There are approximately 30 active cases each year. Initial outcome measures were tracked, including number of arrests, diversions, and mental health referrals. Rate of decline in arrests was compared pre and post implementation. Community arrests have decreased by more than 50% since implementing this model. Contracting with mental health services has led to an average 94 outpatient mental health provider referral per year. The results show positive trends in arrest rates after implementation of this collaborative model of preventive services. These findings support greater research and utilization of integrated, preventive service models for at-risk youth. (PsycINFO Database Record

Role changes in the profession of school counseling take considerable time to be enacted in practice. The purpose of the study in this article is to examine whether newly hired elementary school counselors working in urban settings can implement (a) new directions for practice that have emerged in the recent school counseling literature (i.e., a programmatic, collaborative, and preventive approach), and (b) the components that reflected these new directions embedded in the Delivery System of the ASCA National Model®.

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Youth involved in the juvenile justice system typically have a high prevalence of mental health disorders. Although police are frequently the first point of contact for these youth, they are often not trained to understand or address their mental health challenges. To combat this, interventions through community policing have increased police awareness of mental health and decreased arrests of these youth throughout the country. Yet there is scant research examining the effects these changes have had on access to mental health treatment for youth. This study aims to assess whether Cambridge's police-mental health collaboration increased utilization of youth mental health care. This study included 207 subjects who were either diverted (n ϭ 71) or summonsed/arrested (n ϭ 136). Their individual arrest and health care records were combined to retrospectively evaluate the rate of health care service utilization before and after initial police contact. Both groups showed similar rates of mental health diagnoses. Youth who were diverted had significantly increased outpatient mental health visits when comparing before with after diversion. This rate was also significantly higher than that of those with an initial arrest or summons. There was no difference between groups for acute inpatient visits or emergency department (ED) visits. These findings support translational efforts to partner police with community mental health providers to increase access to treatment, decrease stigma, and keep our neighborhoods safe. What is the significance of this article for the general public?Youth at risk for arrest or detention typically suffer from high rates of mental health difficulties and have poor access to needed services. The results of this study demonstrate that a model of ongoing collaboration between psychologists, community services, and community police can divert youth from arrest, increase at-risk youth access to outpatient mental health treatment, and decrease the likelihood of incarceration.

Training programs in counseling psychology have endeavored to integrate social justice into their curricula and prepare their graduates to be agents of change in their communities (Goodman et al., 2004). However, there is too often a disconnect between social justice theory and training and how these principles are actualized in the community (Beer, Spanierman, Greene, and Todd, 2012). Using a case study of a counseling psychologist’s role in developing and administering Safety Net, a police-mental health collaborative to reduce youth contact with the juvenile justice system, this paper provides an example of a counseling psychologist engaged in a community collaboration and systems advocacy (Lewis, Arnold, House and Toporek, 2002) as integrated parts of his roles as therapist, consultant, and advocate. The authors present the case as an iterative, step-by-step process which can serve as a practical example for professionals and trainees working to translate theory into practice.