This report presents results of a 50-state policy survey conducted by the National Center for Children in Poverty, Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy Center for Children and Families, and Johnson Policy Consulting. The survey asked state Medicaid agency leaders about Medicaid policies related to screenings and services designed…

Child welfare directors in 19 states and juvenile justice officials in 30 counties estimated that in fiscal year 2001 parents placed over 12,700 children into the child welfare or juvenile justice systems so that these children could receive mental health services. Neither the child welfare nor the juvenile justice system was designed to serve…

Analyzes empirical data from one service area in Oklahoma as an illustration of the likely effects of proposed restrictions limiting eligibility of Native Americans for Indian Health Service care. Findings indicate dwindling support for Indian health care and negative impact on future Indian population. (PS)

During the implementation of a cross-agency, co-located service delivery system, the number of youths eligible for public mental health services in Santa Barbara County increased from 956 to 1,826 and the number of youths eligible for special education services for students with emotional/behavioral disorders increased from 101 to 204. (Contains…

Three brief papers review the literature and report on a study concerning the concept of functional impairment in light of regulations requiring both a psychiatric diagnosis and functional impairment for access to mental health care by children and adolescents with emotional disturbances. The first, very brief summary is: "The Origin, Meaning and…

These three symposium papers summarize the outcomes of studies that explored the accessibility and the utilization of youth mental health services. The first study, "The Role of Diagnostic Systems" (Theodore Fallon and Mary Schwab-Stone), involving 219 children (ages 6-12), examined the perils involved in the use of categorical diagnosis to…

This study followed up a large national sample (N=4,161) of Head Start children in an attempt to identify children who are at risk for emotional or behavioral disorders and eligible for special education and to determine to what extent these children are actually identified in the natural progression of special education referral. Children were…