Background: Community health efforts often include outreach activities designed to increase awareness and ensure uptake of services or programs. Yet, few comprehensive outreach evaluations exist, particularly those designed to improve access to and use of mental health services. Purpose: This article summarizes the use of two established…

A variety of alternative programs are being implemented in Canada and the United States for students who have exhibited conduct problems and who are suspended or expelled from their schools. Given the complexity of issues that these students frequently face, treatment must be multifaceted, wrap-around, delivered by trained professionals and be…

Latest research on the mental health status of children indicates that schools are key providers of mental health services (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2003). The push for school mental health services has only increased as stakeholders have begun to recognize the significance of sound mental health as an essential part of…

Describes experiences in developing a multi-program economic evaluation and costing study of Assertive Community Treatment (ACT), a widely studied community mental health treatment model. The project description shows how the worlds of research and service delivery can collaborate to come to symbiotic resolutions. (Author/SLD)

Describes the Connecticut Unit of Service System, a unified system for quantifying services and service delivery that is administratively useful in monitoring and allocating resources. Includes a Relative Value Scale which incorporates staff time and related work to allow a comparison of inpatient and outpatient service. (JAC)

Advantages and disadvantages to various methods of assuring quality and accountability in community mental health centers are discussed. Examples are external structure review, peer monitoring, and site visitation. (LAB)

The satisfaction of 469 parents or guardians and 387 of their children who received mental health services at 22 community agencies in Illinois was assessed with standardized measures and procedures. Youths' satisfaction was less than that of their parents. Results are used to formulate a prediction model. (SLD)

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.…

Needs assessments are conducted with the expectation that the information obtained will be used to make rational decisions. A prior review of the anticipated utilization of needs assessment data and evaluation of the appropriateness of such utilization may prevent inefficient use of resources. A structured interview was developed to evaluate the…

A literature review describes evaluation activities in mental health services in financial, programmatic/clinical, and new constituency areas. Expanding reimbursement for alternative mental health services is offered as a way of developing a formal structure to ensure better utilization of evaluation results. (SLD)

Proposes a framework for assessing how human service delivery systems function. Identifies factors that influence the ability of agencies to operate as a unified system. Provides an accurate picture of how services are delivered to target populations, and why various systems function as they do. (Author/JAC)

This brief paper summarizes three papers and a response presented at a symposium examining longitudinal comparison studies of federally funded community mental health services (CMHS) for children and their families. Emphasis was on comparing the system of care approach to a more traditional approach. The symposium provided an update on the status…

This paper summarizes results of telephone interviews with key personnel at 19 (out of 22) agencies receiving grants under the Center for Mental Health Services program, one part of a 5-year evaluation study examining the impact that utilizing measurable outcomes has on service systems. This component focused on the conceptualization and…

Articles in this special issue use survey data to provide policymakers with validated indirect needs assessment models that will help them obtain information about populations requiring different levels and types of mental health services. The articles provide the basis for predictive needs assessment and explanatory models of resource allocation.…

This introductory article discusses the large numbers of infants and young children affected by behavioral and emotional problems that pose salient challenges for clinical assessment and management. It examines barriers to the delivery of mental health services and stresses the need to develop data concerning efficacy and effectiveness of…