This brief paper on a topical discussion session held at a conference on children's mental health about implications of the 1999 report, "Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General," for children. The discussion focuses primarily on the chapter in the report specifically about children and mental health with comments by four individuals who…

This presentation outlines the implications of psychiatric disability recovery for mental health systems and programs. Schizophrenia and other serious psychiatric disabilities have been viewed as irreversible illnesses with increasing disability over time. Mental health program planning, policies, and practices have been developed and implemented…

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…

The predictive power of the externalizing and internalizing factors of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) for mental health treatment outcomes was studied. Data were collected over 3 years at a community mental health agency. From the population of intakes at the agency, 789 cases were selected as the unrestricted sample, and 374 of these were…

This paper discusses the results of a study that investigated the progress of 51 children receiving long-term dynamically-oriented therapy at a naturalistic "real world" clinic. The orientation of the Outpatient Clinic of the Yale Child Study Center is primarily long-term, psychodynamic treatment. Parents and clinicians completed…

Few questions in psychotherapy are of greater importance than the relationship among practitioners, researchers, and managed care. The present and future roles of psychotherapy are covered here. Despite ample evidence that psychotherapy does work, its effectiveness continues to be questioned. When psychotherapy research emerged some 50 years ago,…

During a symposium, three presentations described initiatives that exemplify the principles and components of the Ecology of Outcomes. Emphasis is on accountability for achieving measurable outcomes and use of outcome information in program planning and development. Summaries of individual papers are: (1) "The Ecology of Outcomes: System…

This paper critiques current models for evaluation of mental health services provided to children and adolescents with emotional disturbances and offers an alternative model. The most popular model, Donabedian's tripartite model, is described. This model separately evaluates three domains: (1) structure (characteristics of the care providers,…

Many women seek treatment for substance abuse problems during their child-bearing years. Evaluations of interventions for these women need to take into account other problems that women may have when they enter treatment. The effectiveness of residential treatment for women, some of whom reported a history of abuse and psychological problems, is…

This paper discusses the results of a study that investigated the effectiveness of the New Jersey Youth Incentive Program (YIP). The YIP program grew out of earlier private and public efforts and reflected national trends in the reform of mental health services for children. Cutting across most of these programs is the underlying principle that…

Three summaries of papers presented in a symposium examine issues in the wraparound model of providing case management and mental health services to children and adolescents with emotional/behavioral disorders. The papers describe 30 months of participatory program evaluation and simultaneous program development between the University of South…

This document presents two papers given at a 1996 conference on children's mental health. The first paper is "New Approaches to Evaluating Systems" by Heather B. Weiss. This paper discusses the need for evaluations of systems change through the development and use of evaluation databases of both comprehensive programs and system reform efforts. It…

This paper summarizes the process of instituting a standardized mental health assessment protocol in a community health treatment program serving maltreated youth. The assessment program was intended to: (1) provide descriptive data regarding the populating utilizing the service; (2) examine the efficacy of therapeutic interventions and monitor…

Fourteen wilderness and adventure therapy programs in England, Scotland, the United States, and New Zealand were studied to explore critical issues of practice. In view of differences in terminology among countries, various terms and assumptions are defined at length: adventure therapy; wilderness therapy; wilderness-adventure therapy; the…

This paper presents principles that should be considered in planning and interpreting studies of outcomes of interventions with children receiving mental health services. Principles to consider when planning outcome studies include recognizing that "outcome" refers to multiple rather than single domains and choosing outcome domains that…