The trend toward adopting a strengths approach to mental health practice with children and adolescents amounts to a paradigm shift from an emphasis on diagnosing disorders to tapping child capacities and assets toward the achievement of treatment goals. While the potential value and challenges associated with this shift has received ample…

As the field of mental health services shifts its focus to early intervention, the need to develop valid and reliable measures of young children's behavioral functioning is clear. Traditional assessment instruments have focused on deficits, problems, and pathologies to the exclusion of strengths and competencies. However, assessing child strengths…