Children receiving services for severe emotional and behavioral difficulties are less likely to have parents who are involved in their education and support services. Peer-to-peer family support programs are one approach to increasing the self-efficacy and empowerment of parents' engagement in the treatment of a child's mental health conditions.…

Given the increasing identification of children with emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD), it is imperative that innovative ways of addressing these concerns are explored. Fewer than half of students identified with mental illness receive treatment, leaving a significant proportion of students to cope with mental illness without support. One…

Steven R. Forness is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His research has primarily focused on early detection and eligibility of children with psychiatric disorders for special education services in public schools. As part of an ongoing oral history…

We sought to identify which kindergarten children are simultaneously at risk of moderate or severe symptomatology in both attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder (CD) as adolescents. These risk factor estimates have not been previously available. We conducted multinomial logistic regression analyses of multiinformant…

Decades of research have demonstrated, now convincingly, that emotional and behavioral syndromes and many of their antecedent risks can be prevented. Much of this progress can be traced to the founding and expansion of the relatively young field called prevention science, an interdisciplinary field that emerged in the early 1990s to address the…

Childhood exposure to traumatic events is a major public health problem in the United States. Traumatic events can include witnessing or experiencing physical or sexual abuse, violence in families and communities, loss of a loved one, refugee and war experiences, living with a family member whose caregiving ability is impaired, and having a…

The effect of childhood trauma, psychiatric diagnoses, and mental health services on school dropout among U.S.-born and immigrant youth is examined using data from the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys, a nationally representative probability sample of African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, Asians, Latinos, and non-Latino Whites,…

Psychiatric emergency services for children and adolescents vary in process, structure and outcome. There are few systematic studies on the type and prevalence of psychiatric problems encountered, related circumstances or resulting interventions. Evidence in these areas is important in evaluation of the function of mental health services in the…

Despite the presence of significant psychiatric comorbidity among children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), little research exists on those who receive community-based mental health services. This project examined one year (2004) of data from the database maintained by 26 community mental health centers (CMHCs) in the Midwestern US state of…

Many developmental theories that emphasize the importance of developmental task attainment imply that there is a degree of homogeneity in the developmental histories of children with serious disorders. From the perspective of developmental psychopathology, however, children identified as having serious emotional or behavioral disorders are likely…

Background: This study describes the development of the Brief Child and Family Phone Interview (BCFPI)--a computer-assisted telephone interview which adapts the revised Ontario Child Health Study's (OCHS-R) parent, teacher, and youth self-report scales for administration as intake screening and treatment outcome measures in children's mental…

Evaluates the usefulness of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) as a routine measure to screen for emotional and behavioral disorders in children and adolescents referred to a community child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS). Results reveal that the SDQ is sensitive in detecting emotional and behavioral problems and may…

This pilot study aimed to establish the psychiatric morbidity in children remanded to prison custody using an age appropriate instrument, the K-SADS. The 19 boys interviewed showed high rates of affective disorders, substance misuse and conduct disorder. Study highlights the need to develop child and adolescent mental health services for children…

Background: This study examines the use of the Brief Child and Family Phone Interview (BCFPI) to screen for childhood psychiatric disorder based on Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version IV (DISC-IV) classifications of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), conduct disorder (CD),…

This paper summarizes results of a study which determined usage of mental health services by children with depressive disorders and whether patterns of service use and parents' perceptions of service use barriers are the same for children with depressive disorders as for those with disruptive disorders. The study used data from the Methods for…