Juvenile Assessment Center
Juvenile Assessment Center
The Jefferson County Juvenile Assessment Center (JCJAC) is a dynamic program that provides a wide range of services through a collective effort between Juvenile Assessment Center Staff, Colorado Youth Detention Continuum (CYDC) , Jefferson Center for Mental Health (JCMH), Department of Human Services (DHS), the First Judicial District’s Attorney’s Office, local law enforcement agencies, and the R-1 Jefferson County School District.
The JCJAC provides assessments to the Jefferson County Community at no charge to families. The assessment process gives juveniles and families the opportunity to provide a comprehensive description of their unique family structure.
The purpose of the assessment is to identify the presenting issue's origin and provide service referrals to address the concern. Issues addressed at the JCJAC include, but are not limited to, welfare placement, runaway, beyond control of parent, drug and alcohol use/abuse, outcry of abuse, family discord, and low level criminal charges. Although the JCJAC works closely with local law enforcement, taking advantage of our free referral service will not generate a criminal record. Nor is the assessment allowed to be part of any ongoing criminal investigation being conducted by law enforcement.
The JCJAC is a single point of entry utilizing a centralized facility for individualized processing, assessing, screening, and referring of at-risk youth and juvenile offenders.
The goal of the JCJAC is to:
Through assessments, we coordinate and are a bridge to services and a safer community.
We do this by:
Assessing and responding to the crisis and ongoing needs of youth and families
Increasing law enforcement availability to the community through provision of timely services
Partnering with community based agencies to provide coordinated responses for youth and families
Providing resources to juveniles and their families
Providing information on how the juvenile justice system functions
Offering referrals on available ‘best practice’ and cost effective services
Assisting community leaders by providing information on trends, both criminal and social, to partner agencies and the community
Providing case specific information to appropriate decision makers
Providing aggregate case information to policymakers