EL PASO, Texas – Through collaborative efforts in 2011, between the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD) and the Office of Acquired Brain Injury (OABI), the El Paso County Juvenile Probation Department began the process of identifying justice-involved youth who may have sustained or acquired a traumatic brain injury (TBI).
The El Paso County Juvenile Probation Department has established protocol to screen eligible clients for brain injury. The Brain Injury Screening Questionnaire (BISQ) is used to identify youth who have suffered a brain injury and note if there were any residual effects of the injury on the child’s physical abilities, cognition and/or emotional or behavioral states.
The grant TJJD secured allowed the El Paso County Juvenile Probation Department to develop a partnership with Dr. Wayne Gordon of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and supported Injury Control Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai in New York. Through this collaboration, the Youth Short Term Executive Plus Program (YSTEP) was developed and implemented at the El Paso County Juvenile Probation Department, to address TBI symptoms exhibited by youth who were screened with the BISQ. The application of YSTEP, a unique program designed to address TBI in youth, reaches a traditionally underserved population with regard to services offered to work on emotional and behavioral changes documented after a TBI has occurred.
Since 2011, youth identified and receiving services through YSTEP have been tracked and recidivism data compiled. Preliminary findings, basedonscoresfrompre/postresults, show that the program appears to positively impact participants with regard to recidivism reduction and enhancement to cognition and selfregulating abilities.
These promising, initial findings have led to interest in replicating the program in other states. The State of Alabama requested training on implementing the YSTEP program for their juvenile justice system and programs. Officials from that state’s Department of Youth Services, Rehabilitation and Human Services were trained in the application of the YSTEP program with a projected start of September 2017 to replicate these services through their state agencies.
The El Paso County Juvenile Probation Department has established protocol to screen eligible clients for brain injury. The Brain Injury Screening Questionnaire (BISQ) is used to identify youth who have suffered a brain injury and note if there were any residual effects of the injury on the child’s physical abilities, cognition and/or emotional or behavioral states.
The grant TJJD secured allowed the El Paso County Juvenile Probation Department to develop a partnership with Dr. Wayne Gordon of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and supported Injury Control Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai in New York. Through this collaboration, the Youth Short Term Executive Plus Program (YSTEP) was developed and implemented at the El Paso County Juvenile Probation Department, to address TBI symptoms exhibited by youth who were screened with the BISQ. The application of YSTEP, a unique program designed to address TBI in youth, reaches a traditionally underserved population with regard to services offered to work on emotional and behavioral changes documented after a TBI has occurred.
Since 2011, youth identified and receiving services through YSTEP have been tracked and recidivism data compiled. Preliminary findings, basedonscoresfrompre/postresults, show that the program appears to positively impact participants with regard to recidivism reduction and enhancement to cognition and selfregulating abilities.
These promising, initial findings have led to interest in replicating the program in other states. The State of Alabama requested training on implementing the YSTEP program for their juvenile justice system and programs. Officials from that state’s Department of Youth Services, Rehabilitation and Human Services were trained in the application of the YSTEP program with a projected start of September 2017 to replicate these services through their state agencies.