NCJFCJ Resolution Regarding Trauma‐Informed Juvenile and Family Courts

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jfcj.12054
• Published date: 01 March 2016
• Date: 01 March 2016

NCJFCJ Resolution Regarding Trauma-Informed

Juvenile and Family Courts

By Melissa Sickmund, Editor

Annually, there are millions of children in the U.S. exposed to violence as victims

of abuse or other violence, witnesses to intimate partner violence, or witnesses to violence

in their neighborhoods. According to the 2011 National Survey of Children Exposed to

Violence (NatSCEV), almost three in five children (57.7%) were exposed to at least one

type of violence in the past year (Finkelhor, et al., 2015). That means approximately 42

million of the nearly 74 million children in the U.S. (Puzzanchera, et al., 2015) are

exposed to violence, crime, and abuse each year.

Research has found that exposure to violence leaves children traumatized and can

disrupt children’s basic cognitive, emotional, and brain functioning that are necessary

for development (U.S. Attorney General’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to

Violence, 2012; MacArthur, 2015). Trauma, if unrecognized and untreated, puts chil-

dren at significantly greater risk than their peers for a variety of negative outcomes (ag-

gressive, disruptive behaviors; school failure; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD);

anxiety and depressive disorders; alcohol and drug abuse; risky sexual behavior; delin-

quency; and repeated victimization) which can persist well beyond childhood, affecting

adult health and productivity.

Research on brain development over the past 2 decades has shown that the areas of

the brain responsible for cognitive processing, and the ability to inhibit impulses and

weigh consequences before taking action, are not fully developed until the mid-20s

(Bonnie, et al., 2012; MacArthur, 2015). Science reveals that the developing brain, in

early childhood and throughout adolescence, is very sensitive to harsh physical and envi-

ronmental conditions (U.S. Attorney General’s National Task Force on Children Exposed

to Violence, 2012). Traumatic violence, especially, can delay or derail brain develop-

ment, leaving even the most resilient and intelligent child with a severely diminished

capacity to inhibit strong impulses, to anticipate and evaluate the consequences of risky

or socially unacceptable behavior, to delay gratification, and to tolerate disagreement or

conflict with others. Such exposure to violence often leads to distrust, hypervigilance,

impulsive behavior, addiction, self-protective aggression, isolation, and lack of empathy

or concern for others. Thus, the bodies and brains of youth who experience prolonged or

repeated violence adapt by becoming focused on survival, which reduces their ability to

delay impulses and gratification, to a degree even beyond that of normal adolescents.

Most children involved in juvenile and family courts have had exposure to violence

and are living with the trauma of that experience (U.S. Attorney General’s National Task

Juvenile and Family Court Journal 67, No. 1

©2016 National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges

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