Youth Comprehensive Risk Assessment (YCRA)

The YCRA was developed at adolescent therapeutic communities for troubled adolescents over a 20 year period as a comprehensive assessment and treatment planning tool and for evaluation in compliance with the Joint Commission (TJC). The YCRA is a clinical and client self-report assessment process in which professionals systematically gather information and make clinical judgments related to six risk areas (risk to self - including risk for suicide or self harm, risk taking and risk for victimization), risk to others (including aggression, sexually inappropriate behavior, and destruction of property), social and adaptive functioning (including developmental disorders, handicaps, cognitive disorganization, and social skills), substance abuse/dependency, family resources, and degree of structure needed (including frequency of out-of-home placements, and need for supervision).

The YCRA has met the rigorous criteria for inclusion on TJC’s list of performance measurement systems. The YCRA has met or exceeded system adherence to all of the TJC quality principles, including sampling, standardization, monitoring, documentation, feedback, education, and accountability. The YCRA uses a non-equal interval Likert scale of 1 to 4x2 (8), with 1 being slight, 2 being mild, 3 being moderate and 4x2 (8) being severe and requiring immediate treatment interventions. In a pilot investigation related to the utility of the YCRA. The results from the YCRA process are now heavily relied upon in therapeutic communities to develop subsequent treatment goals and treatment interventions and well as outcome evaluation.