Court Oversight of Service Delivery Systems

Section 3.6

Judicial Officers Should Exercise their Statutory and Inherent Authorities throughout the Child and Family’s Court Involvement to Ensure that Service Delivery Systems are Providing the Appropriate Assessments, Treatments and Services to Children and Families in Status Offense Cases

Once a status offense case enters the disposition phase, the probability of the youth and his/her family being drawn deeper into the juvenile justice system increases and accelerates. To avoid this, it is imperative and beneficial that courts take on an oversight role.  Judicial officers are uniquely positioned to help ensure that children and families receive timely and appropriate services and assistance that can meet the family’s needs and limit the family’s court involvement.  As overseer, the court’ role is not to evaluate the quality of any given service, but to ensure that the service-delivery system is functioning in the youth and family’s best interest.

There are many ways courts can provide oversight and help ensure that service providers are adequately responding to families’ needs in status offense cases.  Keeping in mind that states may have different ethical, confidentiality and other jurisdictional policy or law requirements or limitations, courts can consider:1

As overseer, the court’ role is not to evaluate the quality of any given service, but to ensure that the service-delivery system is functioning in the youth and family’s best interest.

  • Contacting providers in writing or by phone to request a report or ongoing reports on what the providers’ objectives are and how they plan to achieve them, focusing also on the timeliness and appropriateness of services. 
  • Subpoenaing entities responsible for providing the child or family services, assessments, treatments or other services either by requiring their presence in court or requiring that they submit documentation to the court that shows their efforts to support the child or family.
  • Joining entities responsible for providing the child or family services, assessments, treatments or other services as parties to the status offense case.  In doing so, the court can fully oversee when and how assistance is offered to the child and family and the service providers will have a fuller understanding of what is happening in the court process and how it affects their work.  This may be particularly useful for the court, child and family if the entity responsible for providing services has failed to meet their legal responsibility to provide assistance.


In addition, whenever services are offered through or supervised by the court, judicial officers should ensure that they:

  • Can be started immediately and without long waitlists or time-consuming prerequisites.
  • Are community-based and offered in locations and at times that make it easy for youth (and their families, when appropriate) to attend.
  • Are offered in the least restrictive setting possible (e.g., outpatient, in a comfortable, non-punitive setting), and incarceration is avoided.
  • Are offered by qualified providers with the necessary training and experience, who frequently work with at risk or court-involved youth.
  • Are evidence-basedempirically-supported, or otherwise shown to benefit youth of similar age, gender, and ethnicity and in similar circumstances to the child in question, and are provided by professionals with appropriate training, education and/or experience.


While courts should seek to ensure the child and family receive necessary treatment and services, the court should never assume or maintain jurisdiction over a child and family solely to provide, oversee or ensure that treatment or services are offered.  The court should also be mindful of the purpose for requesting the service, treatment or assessment and ensure that information gained through the providers’ reports is never used to harm the child or used against him or her.


1 Many state laws allow courts to oversee aspects of the service delivery system used for children in the child welfare and juvenile justice system.  For example, California law allows “the court, at any time after a petition has been filed, to join in a juvenile court proceeding any governmental agency, private service provider, or individual…that the court determines has failed to meet a legal obligation to provide services to a child who is the subject of a dependency proceeding…[or] delinquency proceeding.” CA SB 1048 (2012).  In Idaho, a judge of any court can order the Department of Health to submit appropriate mental health assessments and treatment plans for the court’s approval at any stage of court proceedings.  ID. Stat.§ 20-511A.