Describes West Indian culture, including belief systems, family patterns, child-rearing practices, racial mixtures, and geography; and explains the importance of culturally relevant approaches to mental health services. The effective clinician must approach clients with an attitude of cultural relativity. (SLD)

Physical fitness of children with learning disabilities may be comparatively low. In a school-university cooperative program, four rural children with learning disabilities and their families participated in a 10-week fitness program that included nutrition education and family exercise activities. Results were positive and showed the need for…

Describes the evolution, implementation, maintenance, and evaluation of comprehensive school-based mental health services in the Dallas, Texas public schools. A collaboration between mental health services, other health services, and the schools established 10 Youth and Family Centers to serve local schools. Benefits and challenges to coordinated…

Proposes a one-stop model of services to be delivered from pediatric outpatient clinics to improve the delivery of services to low-income preschool children and their families. The needs of low-income preschoolers and their mothers, and how these needs are met by this model, are described. (Author/CR)

A study compared practice-level variables between two sites that have been implementing system-of-care (SOC) principles for at least 5 years and two traditional service systems. Overall, SOC sites scored significantly higher than non-SOC sites in the child-centered and family-focused, community-based, and cultural competence domains. (Contains…

Based on a sample of 1747 from the Chinese American Psychiatric Epidemiological Study, this report examined perceived barriers to mental health treatment. Two factors emerged, namely "practical barriers", which included cost of treatment, time, knowledge of access, and language, and "cultural barriers" consisting of credibility…

The authors examined changes in mental health services and violence prevention strategies in public high schools since the shootings at Columbine High School. Surveys were mailed to school mental health professionals at public high schools in Colorado. Respondents included school counselors, school psychologists, school social workers, principals,…

Mentally ill offenders represent a substantial proportion of jail and prison inmates. Despite the fact that confining mentally ill offenders can and often will exacerbate their mental illness, the quality of mental health services available to them remains poor and insufficient. Up to date, only a few cities and counties have considered a more…

Children and families impacted by severe mental illness (SMI) have multiple strains that effect family functioning, child safety, and parental rights. Traditional services for children and families struggling with severe mental illness have not achieved success in improving family functioning and keeping families intact. Wraparound is a philosophy…

The article by Fantuzzo, McWayne, and Bulotsky (2003), presenting their conceptualization of a paradigm for conducting applied research in children's mental health, is an intriguing fusion of key principles and recommendations. Their model comes close to meeting the profile of a new research paradigm in children's mental health. The author…

Ringeisen, Henderson, and Hoagwood (2003) present a compelling case that: (a) there is a gap between mental health research and the delivery of mental health services in school settings; (b) in order to bridge this gap, mental health professionals must consider contextual factors at the individual, organization, and state/federal policy levels;…

The demand for mental health services in higher education settings continues to increase and places more pressure on staff, highlighting further the importance of good staff morale in these agencies. This task of bolstering staff morale is often placed primarily on the shoulders of counseling center directors. The present article outlines several…

The overall aim of the two school-based pilot studies was to evaluate whether an approach to prevention that focused on changing child impulse control, decision making, and social competence can be effective in changing attitudes toward food intake and physical activity as risk factors for obesity. The strategy used was to translate specific…

Pastoral care embodies the idea that schools should not limit their activities to the transmission of knowledge but should educate the whole child. This paper outlines five "pastoral tasks", casework, preventive work, pastoral curriculum, community building and management, and considers how each might contribute to the five desired…

The School Health Policies and Programs Study (SHPPS) is a national survey periodically conducted to assess school health policies and programs at the state, district, school, and classroom levels. This brief reports study results in the area of violence prevention, covering the following topics: (1) Health Education; (2) Health Services and…