Helping girls in juvenile detention get medical, psychiatric help

Stoneleigh Fellow Leslie Acoca is featured in The Chronicle of Social Change as Girls Health Screen is adopted by the Los Angeles County Probation Department. 

L.A. County is expanding its use of a screening tool designed to identify the most pressing medical and mental health needs of girls in the juvenile justice system. The county had piloted its Girls Health Screening for four years at Camp Scott, the detention facility for girls. Moving forward, all girls entering the juvenile justice system will get the screening. The tool asks 117 questions designed to identify urgent physical and mental health issues. It then flags them for county providers. “It’s like battlefield medicine. It identifies and prioritizes the most important needs,” says the tool’s creator, Leslie Acoca of the Girls Health and Justice Institute.

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