NCJ Number
128389
Date Published
1990
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This overview of suicidal adolescents, pregnant teenagers, and youth drug and alcohol abuse emphasizes diagnostic and assessment procedures and risk management.
Abstract
At-risk youth include students who are failing academically and who also display unwanted social-personal behaviors that lead to possible adjudication or require community support services. Suicide is the second leading cause of adolescent death in the United States. The most common method of suicide is drug overdose. The most frequent theme verbalized as a reason for suicide is depression, expressed through sexual promiscuity, school failure, and atypical eating and sleeping habits. An estimated 1.2 million adolescents bear 550,000 children each year. Many of the same factors associated with adolescent drug use are also predictors of teenage pregnancy. At least 23 percent of school-age youth have used drugs at least once in the last month, and 75 percent of all drugs used by youth are purchased on school grounds. Alcohol use is extremely common among adolescents, with drinking considered by adolescents to be a socially normal, adult-modeled behavior. Alternatives to traditional diagnostic procedures for at-risk youth are examined from the perspective of determining whether they can provide information needed to develop a client management plan. A continuing diagnostic process providing the data base for a client information system is proposed. Such diagnostic practices can promote the early recognition of at-risk behaviors, thus increasing the general awareness that is crucial to preventive efforts. 50 references