Linda A. Teplin, PhD, Northwestern University, Addressed Mental Health Professionals About Juvenile Justice System at PRA Conference
McLean, VA (PRWEB) June 26, 2014 -- The Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association (PRA) welcomed Dr. Linda A. Teplin, PhD, Owen L. Coon, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Director of the Psycho-Legal Studies Program, Northwestern University Medical School, to its Recovery Workforce Summit: 2014 PRA Annual Conference this Tuesday in Baltimore, Maryland. Teplin led a timely keynote address that provided the needed empirical data and a forum to discuss how mental health professionals can improve the short- and long-term outcomes of youth in the juvenile justice system by using the findings from the Northwestern project.
“Dr. Linda Teplin's research on the needs of children involved with the juvenile justice system illustrated the tremendous need to develop, implement, and sustain mental health services for this important population,” said Lisa Razzano, PhD, CPRP, PRA Immediate Past Chair and PRF Chair.
Teplin’s keynote at the Recovery Workforce Summit highlighted substantial scientific evidence of these needs not only in childhood, but also the lasting effects that their experiences have on their development and lives as adults. Teplin's work is another call to action for providers in psychiatric rehabilitation to engage with children and their families to promote recovery and facilitate community inclusion. Teplin is the primary investigator for the Northwestern Juvenile Project, the first large-scale longitudinal study of mental health needs and outcomes of delinquent youth after detention, tracking and interviewing over 1,800 participants for almost two decades. Her research is widely used by government agencies and has been cited in Supreme Court hearings and in five Surgeon General reports (Paule, 2007).
“Increasingly, youth with psychiatric disorders fall through the cracks of the mental health system into the juvenile justice net. But most stays are brief, and nearly all detained youth eventually return to their communities,” said Teplin. “Our challenge is to design effective services that interrupt the revolving door between the community and corrections.”
The Recovery Workforce Summit: 2014 PRA Annual Conference, June 22-25 at the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland is the key training, education, and networking event for the entire psychiatric rehabilitation workforce, including agency executives, educators and researchers, practitioners, and peer support providers.
About the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association (PRA):
As the nonprofit organization focused on growing and training the recovery workforce, the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association is the preeminent association for the development, support, and dissemination of information about the practice of psychiatric rehabilitation and recovery. PRA believes that the practice of psychiatric rehabilitation leads to recovery, and is thus committed to the growth of psychiatric rehabilitation in both quantity and quality, and to the universal availability of state-of-the-art psychiatric rehabilitation services for all individuals with mental illness who seek such services. For more information, visit http://www.psychrehabassociation.org.
Diana Cummins, Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association, http://www.psychrehabassociation.org/, +1 (703) 442-2078, [email protected]
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