Review Article
Health Coaches: An Innovative and Effective Approach for Identifying and Addressing the Health Needs of Justice Involved Youth
Dembo R1*, DiClemente RJ2, Brown R3, Faber J3, Cristiano J3 and Terminello A3
1Department of Criminology, University of South Florida, USA
2Rollins School of Public Health, Emery University, USA
3Agency for Community Treatment Services, Inc., Tampa, USA
- *Corresponding Author:
- Richard Dembo, Ph.D
Department of Criminology
University of South Florida
4202 East Fowler Avenue
Tampa, FL, 33620, USA
Tel: 813-974-2846
Fax: 813-974-5762
E-mail: rdembo@usf.edu
Received date: December 13, 2016; Accepted date: December 21, 2016; Published date: December 29, 2016
Citation: Dembo R, DiClemente RJ, Brown R, Faber J, Cristiano J, et al. (2016) Health Coaches: An Innovative and Effective Approach for Identifying and Addressing the Health Needs of Justice Involved Youth. J Community Med Health Educ 6:490. doi: 10.4172/2161-0711.1000490
Copyright: © 2016 Dembo R, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
We present the background, formulation, and implementation of an innovative health service at the front end of the juvenile justice system serving the serious, growing public health needs of justice involved youth-who bear a high burden of STD/HIV and other health problems. Involving multi-agency collaboration, the Health Coach Service seeks to address the youth health needs through health risk assessment and biological testing-with indicated followup testing, prevention, and neighborhood based treatment services. Through continuous monitoring of the Health Coach Service, we will be equipped to assess its feasibility, efficacy, and its real-world effectiveness and utility as a health-risk detection, prevention, and treatment paradigm.