High Risk Girls in High Risk Settings: What Have We Learned? What’s Next?

High risk girls, relative to boys, are a highly understudied population.  This roundtable will focus on girls with Juvenile Justice and Foster Care histories.  Girls represent a significant portion of youth in the Foster Care system and a fast-growing segment of the Juvenile Justice system.  This is a highly vulnerable population that is at risk for poor developmental trajectories and deleterious outcomes into adulthood.  This roundtable will provide a forum to highlight and discuss findings from a body of research on evidence based interventions for high risk girls in the Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare systems.  A multidisciplinary panel of presenters will speak about 1) the multiple threats experienced by girls coming into these systems (e.g., trauma, delinquency, substance abuse); 2) risk and protective factors associated with deleterious outcomes; 3) the evidence for interventions that reduce risk factors, promote resiliency and prevent adverse outcomes across adolescence and young adulthood; and, 4) implications of the findings and themes for further research, policy and practice.  The panel will highlight key themes and principles derived from the research with a focus on mechanisms of action and long-term outcomes of evidence based interventions; development and tailoring of interventions to meet the needs of high risk girls; key developmental and life transition periods, with a focus on the transition to adulthood, intergenerational transmission, and important systems of care; and, considerations for implementation of evidence based interventions in service systems. The panel will include an attorney, who works in the area of Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare, who will discuss relevance of the research for policy and legislation across legal systems.  The discussant will facilitate a dialogue with the panelists and the audience to stimulate cross-fertilization of ideas regarding next steps for this line of research, important unanswered questions and research gaps, intervention development, how to move evidence based interventions into practice, and translation of the research for informing future policy.  Attendees are invited to come prepared to share their questions, expertise, and participate in an interactive dialogue.