Table 1.

Overview of Qualitative Interview Themes

Conceptualization, Operationalization and Implementation of Trauma-informed Practice in Juvenile Justice Systems	Obstacles to Implementation and Usage of Trauma-informed Practice in Juvenile Court Systems	Proposed Strategies for Enhancing Implementation and Utility of Trauma-informed Practice and Associated Trainings and Psychometric Tools
Trauma-informed practice generally viewed as an ideologically and operationally valuable tool in better understanding youth and their pathways to initial delinquency and recidivism	Access to mental health resources hampered by limited number of local trauma-informed practitioners and density issues, as well as client/family transportation obstacles	Deeper clinical focus in trainings on mechanics of trauma and more follow-up “refreshers,” potentially delivered online (e.g., webinars), around trauma-informed practice, to stabilize stakeholder engagement
Shifts away from modular methods of thinking about youth behavior to trauma-informed practice generated in staff a sense of autonomy and capacity to explore and consider clients’ psychosocial backgrounds in sentencing	Concerns over professional boundaries, and relative appropriateness and competency of court personnel to broach psychological milieu during engagements with clients and their families	Findings way to complement court personnel with on-site clinicians trained in trauma-informed practice, thereby reducing geographic/access barriers to access for clients and their families
Trauma-informed practice generally stimulated tendency toward referral-making for mental health services over traditional, purely/retributive punitive forms of sentencing (e.g., detention, fines, etc.)	Families’ low-income status and insurance issues stymie courts’ efforts to facilitate access to mental health treatment sites and, more generally, to have viable alternatives or substitutes for standard care/institutionalized sentencing measures	Focusing outside of the court system to other stakeholder groups—namely police, schools, and parents—to provide education on the various dimensions of trauma and ways to potentially engage youth who show signs of traumatic exposure
General sense that trauma-informed practice enhanced relationships between courts and families, and did or could improve youths’ psychosocial outcomes and reduce youths’ likelihood of recidivism or intensification of trauma manifestations	Difficulty achieving intellectual and practice support from skeptical state/local government, and “tradition-minded” law enforcement and, K-12 school officials around the trauma construct and need for comprehensive trauma-informed assessments of juveniles	Collaborating with government leaders to build coalitions of tactical and financial support to advance the juvenile system to one that focuses underlying processes behind juveniles’ deviant behaviors via a public health prevention approach