Adapting Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for the Treatment of Co-occurring Trauma and Delinquency in Adolescent Girls

Abstract

Girls in the juvenile justice system have been found to experience high rates of traumatic childhood events. Despite the well-documented coexistence of trauma and delinquency, few programs integrate the treatment of both disorders. Because of the lack of intervention studies addressing co-occurring trauma and delinquency and the lack of data about how these disorders impact each other, there is limited information about how to best treat these disorders when they co-occur. The current article provides a theoretical rationale for adapting a community-based intervention, Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care, to treat adolescent girls with co-occurring trauma and delinquency, describes the intervention approach, and presents outcomes from a small-scale pilot study.

Keywords:

• girls
• delinquency
• trauma
• treatment
• and adolescent

Acknowledgments

Support for this work was provided by the following grants: MH070684 and MH059127, NIMH, NIH, U.S. PHS; and DA015208, DA25857 and DA017592, NIDA, NIH, U.S. PHS.