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.

KEYWORDS:

• sex trafficking
• mental health
• substance use
• youth/adolescents
• commercial sexual exploitation

Disclosures

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies or of the US Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States Government.

Additional information

Funding

The project was supported by the Integrated Substance Abuse Programs funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health (Grant#: DA07272) at the University of California, Los Angeles and a Seed Grant from the UCLA Children's Discovery and Innovation Institute. Dr. Barnert was funded by a UCLA CTSI KL2 Award (UL1TR000124) and by a grant from the California Community Foundation. Dr. Ijadi-Maghsoodi receives funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the Nations Institutes of Health under K12DA000357. Dr. Bath receives funding from National Institutes of Minority Health and Disparities, Grant # P20MD000182, from the Los Angeles County Department of Probation and from the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the Nations Institutes of Health under the AACAP NIDA K12 program, Grant # K12DA000357. The project described was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), through grant UL1TR001881.