At Risk to Fall Through the Cracks: Who Are Crossover Youth?
I was at a conference recently where a 16-year-old, African American young man spoke to an audience of practitioners, researchers, policy makers, and other child advocates. Joseph (not his real name), spoke about how, as a young boy, he experienced abuse from a family member. He described his frustration with his family situation, including how he internalized the negative messages that the abusive person was telling him, and thus he believed that he was not worthy of love. Joseph’s case subsequently came to the attention of the child welfare system, and, fortunately he had two caring relatives step in and help raise him. However, his story doesn’t end there. His earlier abusive experiences remained with him, and he began to act out. Eventually, his delinquent behavior increased so that he was brought into the juvenile justice system. He spoke of the way his case was handled, and that professionals recognized Joseph’s need for appropriate interventions to put him on a better life path. As he said in his speech, “there’s no such thing as a bad boy… all youth can do amazing things when given a chance.”
As Joseph spoke, I thought about how a typical reaction to what he was saying was for someone to think “oh, what an awful childhood that young man has had; yet, he has shown such resiliency and turned his life around!” And yes, in his young age he has shown enormous strength to overcome obstacles. However, we shouldn’t just rely on individual resiliency for young people born into terrible situations beyond their control, but to work for broader system reform as well. Thus, my additional thought I wanted to say to him was, “I’m sorry this happened to you, and I want to work hard to fix our systems so that this doesn’t happen to other young people in the future.” You see, Joseph is part of a special population of young people with involvement in multiple systems (e.g., child welfare, juvenile justice), known as “crossover youth.”
“Crossover youth” is a term used to describe a young person who has experienced maltreatment, gets involved in the child welfare system, and who also engages in delinquency, which comes to the attention of the juvenile justice system. Youth who cross over represent a portion of the total child welfare population — the good news is that not all children and youth who are maltreated encounter the police and courts. Yet, they are still an especially vulnerable population. Given their dual role as both victim of trauma and maltreatment and as an offender in exhibiting delinquent behavior, crossover youth comprise a distinct group of young people with specific needs. National numbers are still hard to come by, but some estimates show that about half of youth with child welfare involvement at some point in his or her life will encounter the juvenile justice system as an adolescent. Additionally, girls are typically overrepresented in crossover youth, as well as youth of color, especially youth who are African American. Crossover youth tend to get arrested about a year younger than youth without a history of maltreatment. Following crossover youth long-term, they also usually have worse educational, employment, and mental health outcomes — and are more likely to get arrested as adults — than young people in the general population.
My research involves examining the issues of crossover youth from multiple perspectives and through various research methods. I originally became interested in this population when I was part of a study that interviewed youth like Joseph. Increasingly, my work uses large, administrative data sets, so I don’t always get to put a singular face to the story of crossover youth. However, I have been fortunate to be involved in both county and state-level data analyses that allow me to more comprehensively tell stories like Joseph’s, and to show that his experience is not at all unique. Currently, I work with the Crossover Youth Practice Model (CYPM) through Georgetown University, which focuses on training professionals in child welfare and juvenile justice to have better communication and collaboration which can result in better outcomes for crossover youth. I help track the outcomes of youth after CYPM has been implemented in a county and compare it with youth outcomes prior to CYPM implementation.
Smarter justice solutions include focusing on prevention and early intervention efforts. By focusing research on the needs of children and youth with a history of maltreatment and child welfare system contact, we can better inform practices and policies that may reduce or eliminate subsequent juvenile or criminal justice system contact. I challenge us as researchers, social workers, and other professionals who care about children and youth to think about ways in which we can strengthen the systems so that we don’t have to ask so much of a youth like Joseph to be resilient in the face of the maltreatment or other tough situations he has experienced — rather, the systems are strong enough to support young people so they can focus on the typical childhood and adolescence that others have. Then, such reforms can help all young people, regardless of the abusive or neglectful life situation he or she is born into, to have positive outcomes. As Joseph said during his speech, due to effective system interventions and caring professionals, “I may not have had the strongest start, but I will have the strongest finish.”
