The Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps defines dual status youth as children “who come into contact with both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems and occupy various statuses in terms of their relationship to the two systems.” Dual status youth make up a large population: One study from Washington indicated that as many as 67 percent of youth in the juvenile justice system had some contact with the child welfare system. Another recent report stated that nearly 30 percent of youth in the child welfare system also have cases in the juvenile justice system.
The education outcomes for dual status youth are exceptionally poor. In a study of dual status youth in Arizona, researchers found that 67 percent of the youth were chronically truant, more than half were more than one year behind in school and at least 44 percent required special education services.
