Infant mental health interventions in juvenile court: Ameliorating the effects of maltreatment and deprivation.

The parent– child relationship provides the most important context for promoting healthy child development (Sims, 2000). However, a healthy parent– child relationship is unlikely to be seen in the environment of the juvenile court. Created 100 years ago in Chicago, the juvenile court is charged with the responsibility of protecting children from the family members who have abused, abandoned, and neglected them. Juvenile court is a place of last resort where the state’s interest in protecting the lives of children is more compelling than the sanctity and privacy of the relationship between a parent and child. The juvenile court intervenes to protect and rehabilitate children when all else has failed. Once the mother has reached the juvenile court, tremendous harm has already been done, the negative effects of which can only be decreased by facilitating a healing process for the child and the family. The juvenile court is in a unique position to initiate the marshalling and creation of community resources to fulfill the statutory duty of the court to heal the child. Emerging research indicates that young children in the child welfare system are at great risk for cognitive and developmental delays (Dicker, Gordon, & Knitzer, 2001). Entry in the child welfare system may provide an opportunity for the juvenile court to evaluate and treat the child for previously undiscovered problems. The children who are under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court see doctors usually only for emergencies and have poor health care. Their parents are not able to determine the nature and extent of developmental and cognitive