In this article, the author conducts a preliminary review of the tragedy at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. He explains how and why such terrible events occur and provides some insights, principles, and strategies that may assist colleges in their quest to provide an optimally safe environment for their students and staff.

Unmet mental health need is a significant problem for adolescents. Although stigma is identified as a major barrier to the use of mental health services among youth, there is limited research on this topic. In-depth interviews (n = 57) among a sample of 8th grade students in a suburban, mid-Atlantic community portray adolescent mental health…

The need for cultural competence and the need for evidence-based practice in mental health services are major issues in contemporary discourse, especially in the psychological treatment of people of color. Although these 2 paradigms are complementary in nature, there is little cross-fertilization in the psychological literature. The present…

Women disadvantaged by poverty, as well as racial or ethnic minority status, are more likely to experience depression than the rest of the U.S. population. At the same time, they are less likely to seek or remain in treatment for depression in traditional mental health settings. This article explores a therapeutic, psychosocial engagement strategy…

The current study replicates work of Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northeast and Islands. It describes dropout prevention programs in nine Mid-Atlantic Region (Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) school districts serving communities with populations of 24,742-107,250 (as of July 2008). All nine…

The greater New Orleans area has yet to fully recover from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall on August 29, 2005. One issue of concern in the recovery is the availability of mental health services for children. It is estimated that in 2008 about 187,000 children were living in the greater New Orleans area. Many children in the…

Coordinated school health programs (CSHPs) provide an organizational framework for school health practice by combining health education, health promotion, disease prevention, and access to health services in an integrated, systemic manner. This project examined the effects of a regional 2-year training program to increase local school districts'…

Background: Although models such as the coordinated school health program (CSHP) are widely available to address student health needs, school professionals have been unconvinced that scarce resources should be allocated to improving student health. Concern that attention may be diverted from meeting academic accountability goals is often seen as a…

This document explains what community consultation and education is, what it does, and how it works; its concern with the prevention of mental illness and the promotion of mental health is examined. More specifically, the document is designed to cast a spotlight upon the preventative and educative services which community mental health centers are…

Article focused on Percy Knauth, this year's national mental health chairman, whose life reflects a deep, personal concern for others and an abiding commitment to the dream of a mentally healthy world. (Editor/RK)

Thirty-five studies were originally selected to be analyzed as to behavior modification techniques used in successful weight-loss programs. From these, 14 studies were chosen that provided sufficient data, including follow-up data, and 4 studies that had no follow-up data but that did report data from the treatment time period. As a result of rank…

Although there is a national emphasis on health promotion and preventive practices, questions remain regarding the equity of access to these services by low income and minority groups, and the implications of inequities for elder health. Data from a systematic survey of 500 public and private providers of health promotion services in northern…

This handbook provides a resource of assessment tools for systematic evaluation of health education programs in the field of smoking. Key fundamentals of systematic evaluation as applied to health education programs are reviewed. Explanations of the handbook's measures, their relationships, rationale, and procedures are given. Included are…

Where mental health administrators used to rely on subjective judgments of senior clinicians to evaluate the effectiveness of mental health services, they now rely more on a quality assurance (QA) plan. The primary motive for undertaking a QA program should be better service. QA may start out being very expensive in terms of personnel and…