Awareness of the mental health needs of youth coming into contact with the juvenile justice system has led to more and better research, which has documented the extent of the problem and provided further justification for the deployment of new screening assessment and treatment resources in responding to juveniles' mental health needs. This has in turn fueled greater advocacy for mental health screening within juvenile justice systems and programs and an increase in the availability of scientifically sound mental health screening tools. These combined influences have reversed the previous trend, such that mental health screening within juvenile justice programs is quickly becoming the rule rather than the exception. Nearly every State in the Nation is now implementing mental health screening measures within some of its juvenile justice programs. The widespread adoption of mental health screening in a range of juvenile justice settings under real-world time and resource constraints has revealed important questions about how to make screening work so as to allow programs to achieve the full value of the process. In addition, confusion has arisen over the appropriate clinical purposes of a mental health screening as distinguished from a mental health assessment, as well as the appropriate use of mental health screening results. One of the chapters presents guidelines for good mental health screening practices and recommendations for the development of policies that will avoid inappropriate uses of mental health screening information once it is obtained from a youth. Another chapter presents a "10-step" procedure for planning and ultimately implementing an effective and purposeful mental health screening process. 16 references