_____ means the referral of a child or a child's case to the office or official, including an intake officer or probation officer, designated by the juvenile board to process children within the juvenile justice system

• A. Referral to Juvenile Court
• B. Guardian
• C. Status Offender
• D. Secure Correctional Facility

Answer: (A)

In juvenile justice, the action of sending a case to the official who handles intake and processing is called referral to Juvenile Court. This describes the formal step where a child or their case is directed to the designated intake or probation officer to be reviewed within the juvenile justice system and moved toward petition, disposition, or other court action. The other terms don’t fit this initiating action: a guardian is a person with custody, a status offender is a classification of behavior, and a secure correctional facility is a place of confinement, not the process of routing a case into the system.