This study examined the potential utility of adding items that assessed youths' emotional and behavioral disorders to a commonly used surveillance survey. The goal was to evaluate whether the added items could enhance understanding of youths' involvement in high-risk behaviors. A sample of 3,331 adolescents in Grades 8, 10, and 12 from four…

Cluster analysis was conducted to examine clinical characteristics of 1,961 boys and 1,320 girls (ages 10-19) with serious emotional disturbances entering systems of care funded by the Center for Mental Health Services. Combining functional and behavioral characteristics of participants indicate that symptom measures alone could not adequately…

This article presents a description of the Child and Adolescent Services Assessment, a self- and parent-report instrument designed to assess use of mental health services by children, ages 8 to 18. The article provides information on interviewer training, coding of data, and psychometric data on clinical samples, and presents a case study.…

The Family Assessment Planning Team Observation Form was used to assess the family friendliness of the admissions treatment team process at an inpatient child and adolescent psychiatric hospital. The overall rating across 35 case presentations was moderately family friendly and showed marginally higher family friendliness than comparable services…

This introductory article provides an overview of the national evaluation conducted within the original 22 grantee communities funded from 1993 to 1999. The history and underlying foundations of the evaluation are presented. Specific evaluation questions and components are outlined, and issues that evolved out of the evaluation process are…

Analysis of an instrument for assessing workers' beliefs about parents of children receiving mental health-related services identified five factors: parent blame, giving information, parent validation, use of psychotropic medications, and parent instruction. Differences in beliefs were revealed among workers who endorsed psychodynamic, family…

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…

Describes the Vermont Community Adjustment Tracking System (VT-CATS), which utilizes four behavioral instruments to allow intensive, ongoing, and interpretable behavioral assessment of a service system's most challenging children and adolescents. Also explains the adjustment indicator checklists and the ability of VT-CATS to address agencies'…

This study examined the cross-ethnic equivalence of several measures commonly used to tap contextual correlates (i.e., parental symptomatology, family relations, peer relations) of serious emotional disturbance in children. Subjects were 117 juvenile offenders with diagnosed substance abuse or dependence disorders and considerable psychiatric…