Children's Mental Health Awareness Day was May 8th!

Check out other Region III pages for more on Children's Mental Health Awareness Day activities and events in the Region!

Resources:

Unclaimed Children Revisited
Unclaimed Children Revisited, from the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP), is a "multi-pronged initiative to generate new knowledge about policies across the United States that promote or inhibit the delivery of high-quality mental health services and supports to children, youth, and families in need." The NCCP highlights that a growing library of publications from the project focuses on numerous dimensions of accomplishment, disappointment and opportunity in contemporary children’s behavioral health. This publication highlights best State policy practice and places special emphasis on identifying policies that promote developmentally and culturally appropriate services, family and youth engagement, and the effective use of evidence-based services. Access Unclaimed Children Revisited from NCCP.

Child Welfare Information Gateway
The Child Welfare Information Gateway provides access to current and classic information and resources to help protect children and strengthen families. The Child Welfare Information Gateway was formerly known as the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information, and the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse.

The Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change
Established by Scott D. Miller Ph.D. and Barry L. Duncan Psy.D. the Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change works to help focus clinical practice on research-based keys about “what works” in therapy. The Institute (ISTC) produces and features an array of tools and materials supporting Client-Directed Outcome-Informed Treatment, which describes a paradigm for clinical treatment that seems remarkably congruent with key system of care tenets of family-driven, youth guided and culturally competent care. Miller and Duncan tend to avoid such lofty principles, indicating “our real aim is to provide a language for clinicians of differing therapeutic orientations to use in speaking with each other about the critical ingredients–about what works, in other words–in helping relationships.” The Institute’s website regularly features intriguing discussions of questions like: What works in therapy? What’s the latest? What’s the latest baloney? and What can you do (as a clinical professional) to increase your effectiveness? To learn more about the Institute, visit http://www.talkingcure.com.

The Rural Web Portal for Healthy Children and Families
The Rural Web Portal is a federally sponsored resource for Helping Communities to Enhance Social and Emotional Outcomes for Children and Families in Rural and Frontier Areas. It provides a valuable new technical assistance resource to rural and frontier communities working to transform systems for children's behavioral health in rural and frontier areas. An outcome of the National Plan for Rural Behavioral Health, the portal is funded by the SAMHSA/Center for Mental Health Services. An innovative and efficient strategy to foster networking and information sharing of strategies and resources for children's mental health, youth violence prevention and reduction or elimination of substance abuse problems in rural America, the portal was launched online on June 7, 2007.

The Road to Evidence: The Intersection of Evidence-Based Practices and Cultural Competence in Children's Mental Health (2005)
The Road to Evidence is a policy paper at the intersection of two key system of care principles - cultural competency and best treatment and support practice (a.k.a. evidence-based practices). Written in 2005, the paper promotes a different perspective - "practice-based evidence" as a range of treatment and support approaches derived from and supportive of the positive cultural attributees of local communities and traditions. Five significant recommendations are made in an attempt to optimize the effectiveness of science-based mental health services with specific cultural communities. View this resource.

Washington State Institute for Public Policy
Created in 1983, the Washington State Institute for Public Policy represents the legislature, governor, and public universities in carrying out practical, non-partisan research on issues of importance. The Institute conducts research using its own policy analysts and economists, specialists from universities, and consultants, and works closely with experts in the field to ensure that studies answer relevant policy questions. Current areas of focus include: education, criminal justice, welfare, children and adult services, health, utilities, and general government.

Some of the best work of the Institute is its series of cost-benefit studies of human service approaches that are promoted as best practices (http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/topic.asp?cat=18&subcat=0&dteSlct=0). Cooperative agreement sites scanning the field to identify cost-effective practices are encouraged to explore the research published by the Institute as one input in selecting evidence-based approaches for application and implementation. 

Achieving the Promise: Report of the President’s Commission on Mental Health
In April 2002 President George W. Bush established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. Composed of fifteen members representing providers, payers, administrators, and consumers of mental health services, as well as family members of consumers, the Commission condicted “a comprehensive study of the United States mental health service delivery system, including public and private sector providers.” In July 2003, the Commission issued its recommendations in a final report entitled Achieving the Promise, Transforming Mental Health Care in America. See http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov/reports/reports.htm. This report has identified barriers to care within the mental health system, and has provided examples of community-based care models that have proven successful in coordinating and providing treatment services.

The Commission concluded that the mental health service delivery system in the United States must be substantively transformed. In the transformed system: 1) Americans understand that mental health is essential to overall health; 2) mental health care is consumer and family-driven; 3) disparities in mental health services are eliminated; 4) early mental health screening, assessment, and referral to services are common practice; 5) excellent mental health services are delivered and research is accelerated; and 6) technology is used to access mental health care and information.

Definition of Family-Driven Care
A key recommendations of the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health calls for mental health care to become “consumer and family-driven.” The Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health has worked with an extensive array of stakeholders to define “family driven care.” This definition, as well as many supportive resources, can be found at: http://www.ffcmh.org/systems_whatis.htm.

Specialized Training of Military Parents (STOMP)
STOMP is a federally funded Parent Training and Information (PTI) Center established to assist military families who have children with special education or health needs. STOMP is a one-stop shop for information and training regarding special education and other resources. STOMP assistance is provided by parents of children who have disabilities, built upon the foundation of their own experience raising their children in military communities, and traveling with their spouses to different locations.

STOMP serves families:

• By providing information and training about resources for military families of children with disabilities, and related regulations and laws;
• By connecting families to other families;
• By assisting parents and professionals to develop their own community parent education/support groups; and
• By providing a social marketing and advocacy voice by raising awareness of issues faced by military families of children with disabilities.

STOMP is a project of Washington PAVE, a grass roots parent-directed organization. As such it draws on PAVE’s expert, comprehensive knowledge on disability/ special education laws, and rights, regulations and responsibilities of military families; and works through a parent driven approach. Visit STOMP’s website at: http://www.stompproject.org.

Arizona’s Clinical Guidance Documents
Arizona’s “JK Settlement” (2001) described a statewide vision for an integrated approach to serving children and families according to a set of 12 Principles that are wholly congruent with the System of Care principles endorsed by SAMHSA. During the past six years Arizona has systematically developed a set of practice improvement protocols and technical assistance documents that have received nationwide praise for their detailed operationalization of SOC principles across an array of specific child and family circumstances. The Arizona system is predicated on a universal wraparound process (Arizona Child and Family Teams). Similar protocols can be collaboratively developed by partners and stakeholders to guide application of SOC principles in your community. See these documents at: http://www.azdhs.gov/bhs/guidance/guidance.htm

Implementation Research: A Synthesis of the Literature (2005)
In recent years the science related to developing and identifying "evidence-based practices and programs" has improved; but science related to implementing these practices with fidelity, in order to support good outcomes for children and families, has lagged behind. The National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) has now described the current state of the science of implementation, and has identified what it takes to transmit innovative programs and practices to mental health, social services, juvenile justice, education, early childhood education, employment services, and substance abuse prevention and treatment. This monograph summarizes findings from the review of the research literature on implementation and proposes frameworks for understanding effective implementation processes – an essential contribution to the application of evidence-based programs to improve the lives of children and families.
http://nirn.fmhi.usf.edu/resources/detail.cfm?resourceID=31

Targeted Parent Assistance (TPA)
The President’s New Freedom Commission (2003) recommended that mental health care should be consumer and family-driven. Targeted Parent Assistance is an outcome-oriented, goal-driven process for providing parent-to-parent support. Developed by Keys for Networking, Inc., a Kansas Parent Information and Resource Center, the TPA model that conceptualizes a continuum of parent engagement that neatly supports key family roles in the development of community Systems of Care. Featured in the Winter 2006 issue of Portland State University’s fine Focal Point publication, the TPA model is described in detail at: http://www.keys.org/content.cfm?section=4&page=400

Search Institute, Minneapolis MN
Search Institute is an independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide leadership, knowledge, and resources to promote healthy children, youth, and communities. To accomplish this mission, the institute generates and communicates new knowledge, and brings together community, state, and national leaders. At the heart of the institute's work is the framework of 40 Developmental Assets, which are positive experiences and personal qualities that young people need to grow up healthy, caring, and responsible. Search Institute has developed several helpful guides, including Mentoring for Meaningful Results, a start-up kit for mentoring program leaders; and Getting To Outcomes with Developmental Assets, a tapestry of proven evaluation and accountability models braided together within the Developmental Assets framework to provide a range of resources needed to improve the quality of community development work. Search Institute spearheads a national Healthy Communities/Healthy Youth initiative through a network of nearly 600 community organizations. http://www.search-institute.org/

Systems of Care in Child Welfare
Many children and youth in the child welfare system and those at risk of abuse and neglect have a variety of physical, mental, social, emotional, educational, and developmental needs. Child welfare professionals have worked with their counterparts in other agencies for years to piece together the services available for these children and youth and their families. Since the Systems of Care service delivery approach builds partnerships to create a broad, integrated process to address families' multiple needs, the federal child welfare agency - Administration for Children and Families - is supporting growth of this approach by supporting development of Systems of Care infrastructure in nine pioneering communities. http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/service/soc/