In foster care settings, the treatment plan captures goals and interventions for youth in care. The first version of this plan is typically due 30 days after the youth is enrolled in the foster care program, leading to a challenging month of assessing the case and developing the treatment plan. This study utilized Critical Decision Method interviews with care coordinators and clinicians to understand the decision-making involved in balancing assessment tasks, and the barriers to using assessment to inform treatment. The interviews were coded to identify major themes including information sources and constraints. These identified themes and general understanding of the problem space will drive future work developing interventions to improve the workflow process and drive better outcomes for youth in foster care.

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Positive youth development (PYD) models can play a critical role in programming for at-risk youth involved with the Juvenile Justice System (JJS) or legal system. This article reports on the outcomes of a study that examined the impact of the Reinvesting in Youth (RIY) program on increasing developmental assets for youth who are at-risk for detention or higher level of care placements. RIY is a three to six month preventive and ATD program within a large non-profit behavioral healthcare organization that provides case management, community asset navigation, and academic support through an asset-building framework. Fifty-nine youth discharged from RIY were included in the study. The impact of the program was measured using the Developmental Assets Profile (DAP). Using a dependent samples t-test, results indicate that the RIY program has a significant and positive impact on increasing assets from admission to discharge on total asset scores, internal and external assets, and seven of the eight asset categories.

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