Early adolescents entering middle school are at a pivotal developmental phase as they become less dependent on parents/guardians and seek greater autonomy while encountering a complexity of social demands requiring them to regulate their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors to achieve academic and social success. Yet, students who receive services…

Youth in juvenile justice facilities may experience symptoms of mental health disorders and trauma at a higher rate than their normative peers. As a result, juvenile justice facilities have become de facto mental health agencies, resulting in an increased need to provide interventions that can meet the various needs of their residents. Embedding…

In preparing children to deal with life in an increasingly complex society, it is important that schools devote attention to well-organised and theoretically sound programmes employing a preventive approach to mental health. Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), as indicated in its name, incorporates changes to thought processes and…

For more than 20 years, the system of care philosophy has comprised a central strategy of service reform in children's mental health at the federal, state, tribal, and local levels. System of care terminology has become widely used in many different service sectors but often without a shared understanding of what a system of care is. This…

The system of care approach as a strategy for serving children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbance (SED) is by any measure a success with one exception: there is controversy regarding the scientific evidence documenting that the services provided through systems of care improve the symptomatic and functional outcomes of the youth…

Significant issues still confront the field of emotional or behavioral disorders (E/BD) in providing a free, appropriate, public educational (FAPE) program for these students. This paper reviews recent case law for several critical areas of concern to the field today, including: (a) response to intervention (RTI) and child find procedures, (b)…

This is an edited version of a recent interview with Annette Mendelsohn, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Royal Free Hospital, London, UK. It aims to make available in published form Mendelsohn's thinking and approach in relation to her work with traumatised children in a hospital setting. Mendelsohn also discusses her work in a…

We describe cases from the clinical records in the Intensive Mental Health Program to illustrate the diverse presenting problems, intervention strategies, therapeutic process, and outcomes for children receiving services in this school-based, community-oriented treatment model. Cases reflect varying degrees of treatment response and potential…

The academic and social challenges facing public schools are enormous. For example, the pressure to meet the demands of the current high-stakes testing environment and reach adequate yearly progress (AYP) goals has arguably never been greater (Luna & Turner, 2001; Sanders, 2003). The energy devoted to academics has supplanted the little time spent…

This paper provides an overview of screening, identification, and assessment tools and processes that can be used by practitioners and researchers who care for immigrant and refugee youth. The authors focus particularly on those tools useful in school-based settings. First, the authors review mental health needs of immigrant and refugee youth and…

This fact sheet is intended to provide a snapshot of the current issues surrounding dropout factors among students who are identified with emotional disturbance, as well as to provide mental health resources that may assist this population to remain in high school. The statistics presented in this document highlight both the importance of…

The first of two booklets on the TOPS Program (Teaching Outreach Prevention School), a school/mental health cooperative project, describes the operation of group work for elementary aged children with emotional and behavioral problems. Goals are said to include increasing the students' feelings of acceptance, caring, and support as well as…

This paper summarizes the development of the Adolescent Treatment Outcome Module (ATOM) to monitor the outcomes of mental health treatment of adolescents with emotional or behavioral problems. The module is intended to: provide reliable and valid information about outcomes of mental health care; be applicable across severity levels, clinical…

A demonstration project for very disturbed adolescents from Metropolitan Toronto involving 13 agencies is described. The system is composed of four interrelated services in each geographical area and would allow for free movement of adolescents from one phase to another in accordance with their needs and abilities, including back-tracking as well…

Development of a college mental health service concerned with suicide intervention is described. Primary prevention programs emphasized ties with other agencies to facilitate referrals while secondary prevention programs encouraged psychotherapy and family involvement. (Author/DF)