Exploring Mental Health and Substance use Treatment Needs of Commercially Sexually Exploited Youth Participating in a Specialty Juvenile Court

Abstract

The study sought to: 1) describe the mental health and substance use profiles among participants of a specialty trafficking court program (the Succeed Though Achievement and Resilience Court); 2) describe youths’ mental health and substance use treatment prior to participating in the program; and 3) examine whether abuse influences report of mental health problems and/or substance use. Retrospective case review of court files was performed on commercially sexually exploited youth who volunteered to participate in the court from 2012 to 2014 (N=184). All participants were female. Mental health problems and report of substance use was high among this population. Substance use differed at statistically significant levels between youth with a documented abuse history compared to those with no abuse history. Substance use also differed by report of mental health problems. Unexpected findings included the high rate of hospitalization for mental health problems and relatively low substance use treatment prior to STAR Court participation. Opportunities for improvement in critical points of contact to identify commercially sexually exploited youth and address their health needs are discussed.

A longitudinal study of justice characteristics among girls participating in a sex trafficking court program

“…Adverse childhood experiences are common among sex trafficked youth (Naramore, Bright, Epps, & Hardt, 2017 ). One study of trafficked youth participating in a specialty court reported that 92% of the sample had a child abuse report investigated and substantiated by child protective services (Cook, Barnert, Ijadi-Maghsoodi, Ports, & Bath, 2018 ). Several studies of justice-involved youth investigate differences in adverse childhood experiences between those who had been trafficked versus those who had not been trafficked and found that those who had been trafficked had higher odds of physical and sexual abuse, higher odds of emotional and physical neglect as well as family violence, compared to those with no trafficking history (Cole, Sprang, Lee, & Cohen, 2014 ; Reid, Baglivio, Piquero, Greenwald, & Epps, 2017 ; Wilson & Widom, 2010 ).…”

“…Consistent court appearances are an indication of active program engagement. Additional details about the program and participants is published elsewhere (Cook et al, 2018 ).…”

Fierce Autonomy: How Girls and Young Women Impacted by Commercial Sexual Exploitation Perceive Health and Exercise Agency in Health Care Decision-Making

“…Research team members had several large group meetings to derive analytic categories from the data and develop an initial codebook of themes. The codebook was refined using iterative thematic analysis as guided by Charmaz's (2014) work in constructivist grounded theory. Once the team reached consensus about the codebook, a two-member team coded each interview transcript independently using a collaborative platform, Dedoose software (Version 8.1.14, Manhattan Beach, CA, USA).…”

Using School-Based Health Programs to Prevent Human Trafficking: The Mount Sinai Experience

“…When these risk factors are identified, they can be addressed in a timely way in an effort to prevent or interrupt the progression to human trafficking. These risk factors include having a history of childhood abuse [ 7 8 ]; a history of systems involvement in child welfare, including foster care [ 8 ]; having unstable living situations, being homeless, or having a history of running away [ 9 ]; use of alcohol and other drugs [ 10 ]; a history of mental health needs, including suicidality [ 7 11 ]; or identifying as LGBTQ [ 8 12 ]. All of these risk factors are assessed in the SBHC, and the mental health staff play a key role in providing not only counseling, but also assisting with referrals for concrete services.…”