Continuing & Professional Studies, Palo Alto University

This self-paced training program on Juvenile Assessment Issues and Evaluation of Juvenile Waiver to Adult Court is presented by Randy T. Salekin, PhD.

The course is intended to comprehensively cover important topics and factors related to the juvenile justice system and assessment of youthful offenders while embedding developmental psychopathology principles in the assessment process. This course covers six main topic areas with respect to this type of assessment. First, the course briefly overviews the juvenile justice system and the role of psychologists’ in the system. Second, the course examines ways in which to assess deception in children and adolescents. Third, the course helps clinicians and researchers understand personality functioning in youth and discuss how the Big 5 factor model of general personality applies to youthful offender evaluations. Fourth, the course covers the assessment of risk for dangerousness, maturity, and treatment amenability and readiness, integrating the topics of the veracity of reporting and personality. In addition, developmental maturity is embedded in the discussion of all topic areas given its importance in the assessment and treatment of juvenile offenders. Fifth, the course discusses psychological measures that can be used in disposition and transfer measures. Finally, this course discusses and provide practical guidelines for how psychological evaluations can be constructed and framed within a developmental perspective, and how such information can be communicated to relevant court personnel or treatment providers via psychological reports and/or testimony.