...a Psychologist Donna Stewart

Today, the court system wants to make a better effort to bring mental health services into the justice system, which means it is essential that the kids who need help are identified. Girls and Boys Town opened a new Assessment Center this August to evaluate children in Nebraska's Office of Juvenile Justice Services, and I supervise a multidisciplinary staff at the Clinical Services department. Every day, I am aware of how vital my job is in determining the course of a child's life.

Located in the Girls and Boys Town Headquarters Building, my staff psychologists and I evaluate youth, ages 12-19, who are in the juvenile justice system and need psychological assessments for their court cases. Every day we see kids who need help. These are young people who currently have charges pending, whose judges need an evaluation of them in order to establish how to best serve each child's unique needs. For some kids, counseling and individual or family therapy are essential. Others need substance-abuse treatment or home-placement services. Our job is to start each child we serve down the correct path as quickly as possible.

I arrive at the office as early as 7 AM, and my day is immediately up-and-running: reports, case line-ups, meeting with kids. For me, there are no idle moments and I love that constant challenge, that sense of urgency. My role is to make an evaluation of each individual child and recommend a level of care. The judge then decides where to place the child. Our Assessment Center is one step in the effort to broaden the continuum of care, and it enables us to apply our expertise to correctly evaluate children before a judge makes a decision.

During the course of a daily assessment, I supervise a whole range of issues such as comprehensive IQ testing, assessment of academic performance, and mental status exams where a possible psychosis or psycho-pathology (such as depression or anxiety) can be verified-all of which help us determine the level of a child's development and need. We have to find out what problems each child is facing and how to best help each individual. At the end of the day, it is up to me to pull all the pieces together, finalize reports and make the final recommendation for the caseworker who will speak to the judge. Ninety-nine percent of the time, we do not know the case's outcome, or where a child is placed, and that's the hardest part: not knowing what happens in the end.

We see youth early in the process, shortly after arrest, many accompanied by law enforcement officers. My staff includes therapists, a physiologist, a nurse practitioner, and a licensed mental health practitioner and our process is comprehensive. It typically takes 10 intense days to complete our personal evaluations-and no two are alike.

Girls and Boys Town's Assessment Center was established out of a need for more accurate evaluations. Girls and Boys Town took on the assignment because of its well-known, high-quality care of children and the resources it has available to make accurate and thorough assessments, and I'm proud to be a part of that.

One of our stated goals for 2004 was to find new ways to offer assistance to children and families, and every day my team works hard in order to meet that goal. A day in the life of an Assessment Center therapist is unpredictable, and non-stop. But every day I know that the bottom line is: we want to reach out and help more kids.

Donna Stewart (EdS '01/PhD '02 - School Psychology) was licensed as a psychologist in 2004. She has lived in Omaha for three years, where she completed an internship and post-doctoral work in behavioral pediatrics. She is originally from St. Louis, Missouri.