Crisis intervention is a now accepted form of brief therapy that has become the treatment of choice for many individuals seeking to cope more effectively with life stresses. Recently, there has been an evolution of several disparate styles of crisis intervention in the direction of one convergent model. The screening/assessment style that…

Utilizing the conceptual framework of coping theory, 30 family care-givers of mentally ill family members were interviewed to determine the relationship between coping effectiveness and such variables as patient characteristics, factors of the care-givers life situation, and the availability and adequacy of community supports. Care-givers were…

The author considers group therapy as one of the most appropriate approaches to help psychotic patients, especially schizophrenics. He advocates the formation of four graded groups of patients based on the seriousness of their problems. The first is an intake group formed of newly admitted patients. Interaction in a group situation provides the…

This paper describes the Youth Resource Center (YRC) of Glastonbury, Connecticut--a multifaceted treatment facility. The YRC is based on a Systems-Interaction (SI) model of service, which maintains that a system can be changed by intervention at any point in the system; consequently, the same goals can be achieved through various target groups or…

The Alaska earthquake of March 27, 1964, had devastating effects upon the population and business economy of the entire South Central Alaska region. The project was devised to offer immediate rehabilitation planning and services for the area and to develop new and extended services consistent with the regrowth of the general economic community.…

The Community Mental Health Workers Project is a 5-year community-based staff-demonstration study designed to develop, train, utilize, compare, and evaluate the effectiveness of three new types of middle level workers for community mental health programs. The three levels of workers are classified as: (1) an aide who will be an indigenous member…

This paper reports the findings of a study of the bureaucratic processing of emotionally disturbed children. It focuses on the components of bureaucratic decisionmaking and evaluation which determine the biographical documentations of clients which are constructed by mental hospital staff. (Author)

Although the standards of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals were developed with no formal involvement on the part of psychologists, they reflect contemporary psychological thought concerning the effective delivery of mental health services and are appropriate for determining community mental health centers' eligibility for…

Accurate assessment of the client's ability to pay is the cornerstone to fee collections in any service organization. York County Counseling Services implemented a new method of fee assessment and collection based on the principles of providing a service worth paying for, accurate assessment of ability to pay, and a budget-payment system. (Author)

Questionnaires were sent to classroom teachers and parents of children (5-14 years old) in the Vancouver City (Canada) school system to determine the unmet need for psychiatric services. (SBH)

Administered Mental Health Servicves Questionnaire to 100 older and 100 middle-aged adults. Found that age groups did not differ in how they defined serious psychological problems. Both age groups equally identified professional mental health services as appropriate for helping individuals with psychological problems. Although age did not affect…

Reviews the ethical issues related to involuntary psychiatric treatment, including the conflicts between the principles of beneficence, autonomy, and nonmaleficence with regard to involuntary treatment for the patient's interests versus those of society. Describes moral problems as centering around disagreements regarding the patient's…

Suggested that every hospital should have a suicide prevention committee which establishes written guidelines after surveying security areas and talking with staff and patients. Reasonable treatment requires that each patient be evaluated for suicide risk and that staff follow a treatment plan according to the hospital's own policies. (JAC)

Fundamental changes in public attitudes toward the mentally ill are needed if progress in better treatment is to really continue within this country. (Editor)

These four symposium papers provide examples of different states that have experimented with various criteria and approaches in developing youth mental health services. The four states profiled, North Carolina, Arizona, Louisiana, and Massachusetts, are using the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS) to assess impairment in…