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Research in children's mental health lags behind research for adults in part because it is intrinsically context-bound. Making research findings useful & ensuring that they are applied to improve the lives of children & families requires a process of collaboration with many partners, such as teachers, nurses & healthcare providers.

Purpose: Untreated parent mental health problems have deleterious effects upon the family, yet caregivers are unlikely to receive services for their emotional health. We conducted a review of treatments and services for children and adolescents that also offered services to parents. Methods: Child treatment and service studies were included in the present study if they analyzed parent symptoms or diagnoses over time, and the intervention contained a parent component. Results: Of 200 studies reviewed, 20 contained a component for the parent and assessed the parent's emotional health at multiple time points. Depression and anxiety were the most commonly studied parental mental health problem; most parent components consisted of behavioral strategies in service of the child's psychological health. Conclusion: Major shifts in health care policy affecting mental health services provide an opportunity to create integrated and coordinated health and behavioral health systems. Attention must be given to ensure that the workforce of providers, the administrative structures, and the reimbursement strategies are strengthened and connected to serve the needs of parents/caregivers and children in order to enhance family outcomes.

Studies involving children with mental, emotional, or behavioral problems--or their families--have to meet certain standards of research ethics. This book contains chapters on the kinds of ethical dilemmas that typically occur in different types of studies of children, and then presents 65 real-world cases from experts who study children's mental health. These experts offer practical suggestions for how to handle these dilemmas. Chapters on the perspectives of parents, regulators, and bioethicists provide additional points of view on these issues. Written in down-to-earth language, this book w

Mental health services embedded within school systems can create a continuum of integrative care that improves both mental health and educational attainment for children. To strengthen this continuum, and for optimum child development, a reconfiguration of education and mental health systems to aid implementation of evidence-based practice might be needed. Integrative strategies that combine classroom-level and student-level interventions have much potential. A robust research agenda is needed that focuses on system-level implementation and maintenance of interventions over time. Both ethical and scientific justifications exist for integration of mental health and education: integration democratises access to services and, if coupled with use of evidence-based practices, can promote the healthy development of children.

AbstractBackgroundEvidence-based practices have not been routinely adopted in community mental health organizations despite the support of scientific evidence and in some cases even legislative or regulatory action. We examined the association of clinician attitudes toward evidence-based practice with organizational culture, climate, and other characteristics in a nationally representative sample of mental health organizations in the United States.MethodsIn-person, group-administered surveys were conducted with a sample of 1,112 mental health service providers in a nationwide sample of 100 mental health service institutions in 26 states in the United States. The study examines these associations with a two-level Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analysis of responses to the Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale (EBPAS) at the individual clinician level as a function of the Organizational Social Context (OSC) measure at the organizational level, controlling for other organization and clinician characteristics.ResultsWe found that more proficient organizational cultures and more engaged and less stressful organizational climates were associated with positive clinician attitudes toward adopting evidence-based practice.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that organizational intervention strategies for improving the organizational social context of mental health services may contribute to the success of evidence-based practice dissemination and implementation efforts by influencing clinician attitudes.

Objective: The dynamics of interactions between evidence-based intervention (EBI) developers and trainers and organizations and providers that deliver the EBI was examined in two case studies, a statewide randomized effectiveness trial of an EBI to reduce child neglect and a randomized trial of EBIs for depression, anxiety, and conduct problems in children and adolescents. Methods: Data were collected using ethnographic methods of participant observation and semistructured interviews and analyzed using grounded theory analytic methods. Results: Formal and informal interactions between EBI propagators and end users provide access to resources and exchange of global and local knowledge of service delivery. Productive interactions require accessibility, mutual respect, a shared language, and a willingness to engage in negotiation and compromise to resolve differences in demands imposed by organizational culture, the need for EBI fidelity, and client characteristics. Conclusion: A cultural exchange characterized by information sharing and behavioral change through a process of negotiation and compromise is central to evidence-based practice in youth serving systems of care.