About
102
Publications
24,799
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
3,121
Citations
Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Current institution
Publications
Publications (102)
This study employed a randomized controlled trial with pre- and post-intervention measurement to investigate the impact of the Speaking to the Potential, Ability, and Resilience Inside Every Kid (SPARK) Teen Mentoring program on knowledge of the principles of mind, thought, and consciousness; communication, decision making, and problem-solving skil...
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programs seek to enhance social and emotional competencies in children, including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. By means of direct instruction regarding social and emotional competencies, SEL programs have the potential to strengthen resil...
Early adolescence and the transition to middle school bring about many challenges for students and negative outcomes are not uncommon, including academic decline and social maladjustment. This developmental period is also marked by increased risk of mental health‐related difficulties. Strengthening students’ social and emotional competencies throug...
Objectives
There is evidence to suggest the level of caregiver strain experienced by parents and other caregivers may have implications for engagement in their child’s mental health and education services. This is particularly important for caregivers of youth with emotional and behavioral disorders in special education, as these caregivers tend to...
Suicide is the third leading cause of death among youth. It’s Time to Talk about It: A Family Guide for Youth Suicide Prevention is a consumer-driven, easy to read educational print resource to guide families in efforts to prevent suicide. This study utilized a retrospective, cross-sectional survey design to evaluate if this recently developed heal...
Children stand to lose if the federal government follows through on threats to cut funding for critical safety-net programs that have long supported families and communities. Although cuts directly targeting children's mental health are a great concern, cuts to policies that support health, housing, education, and family income are equally disturbi...
Background:
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for adolescents. Whereas school-based prevention programs are effective, obtaining active consent for youth participation in public health programming concerning sensitive topics is challenging. We explored several active consent procedures for improving participation rates.
Methods:
Five...
This study provides a description of caregiver strain in a sample of caregivers of students with emotional and behavioral disorders receiving school-based services. Few studies have examined caregiver strain in school-based samples. Given poor outcomes for these youth, as well as the potentially influential role of caregiver strain in service use a...
Parents of children with emotional and behavioral needs frequently experience difficulty navigating community-based services for their child, as well as experience increased stress and parental strain. Peer-to-peer support programs are an emerging approach to assist these parents, and evidence suggests that they are effective in increasing parents’...
Background: Although gatekeeper training is effective at increasing knowledge, some question the effectiveness of these programs due to high pretraining knowledge levels. However, knowledge scores may be artificially inflated when students guess answer options correctly but lack information needed to assist suicidal peers. Aims: To use free-recall...
Background: Although gatekeeper training is effective at increasing knowledge, some question the effectiveness of these programs due to high pretraining knowledge levels. However, knowledge scores may be artificially inflated when students guess answer options correctly but lack information needed to assist suicidal peers. Aims: To use free-recall...
Utilizing principles from family-driven care and community-based research, community members and researchers collaborated to uncover the experiences, perceptions, and needs of families whose children had been impacted by mental illness and suicide. Using a flexible and iterative process involving in-depth qualitative interviews, four themes emerged...
Parent education and support has been identified as a potential resource to help improve outcomes for youth who have emotional disturbances (ED). The current study builds on promising results from Parent Connectors (PCs) (Kutash et al. in Adm Policy Ment Health Ment Health Serv Res 38:412–427, 2011), a peer-to-peer program aimed at increasing the e...
It is well documented that youth with or at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) have severe deficits in their academic functioning. To begin to address these deficits, we focus on the need to close the opportunity gap by providing access to multi-tiered systems of academic prevention, maximizing academic learning time, and providing...
The current study examined the organizational social context in 21 community-based programs serving youth at-risk for out-of-home care due to emotional or behavioral disorders and their families and program performance on five quality indicators of team functioning in teams that included a family support specialist. Results indicate that programs w...
Quality measurement is an important component of healthcare reform. The relationship of quality indicators (QIs) for parent-delivered family support services to organizational social contexts known to improve quality is unexamined. This study employs data collected from 21 child mental health programs that deliver team-based family support services...
Quality indicators for programs integrating parent-delivered family support services for children's mental health have not been systematically developed. Increasing emphasis on accountability under the Affordable Care Act highlights the importance of quality-benchmarking efforts. Using a modified Delphi approach, quality indicators were developed f...
Public policy initiatives to deliver evidence-based practices in community settings have increased the need to develop implementation feedback systems to assist program administrators adopting the practices as well as researchers who wish to continue the line of research. This paper contributes to the efforts to reduce the implementation gap in the...
The purpose of the current study is to contribute to the knowledge base on the use of family education and support (FES) services by examining the longitudinal trajectories of FES receipt and multiple domains of child and family functioning. Using an extant data set of more than 9,000 youth and their caregivers, results indicate that families who r...
Using data from the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study, we describe parent involvement and support activities in schools educating a nationally representative sample of students with emotional disturbances (EDs). We describe the extent to which programs aimed at encouraging family involvement are offered by schools and received by fami...
:Outcomes for students in special education continue to be disappointing and those having emotional disturbances (ED) continue to lag behind the other disability groups. In this study, school reform activities and the effects on students who are educated in special education programs for students who have ED were examined. Demographically similar e...
The results of a survey to measure the implementation of the systems of care (SOC) approach in a nationally representative sample of counties are presented. The results from 910 informants within 225 counties reveal a moderate level of implementation of SOC factors, with the level of poverty and population size influencing implementation. Furthermo...
Measuring complex systems is a major challenge confronting children’s mental health and other human service systems. Within the past 25 years, there has been increasing recognition that effective services for children and youth with serious emotional disturbances and their families requires, for example,a range of services; collaboration between a...
A major impediment to obtaining national information on systems of care implementation has been the lack of a psychometrically sound large-scale survey instrument. The present study provided information on the factorial and concurrent validity of the Systems of Care Implementation Survey scales. Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis and multileve...
The children's system of care framework has been extensively implemented in the U.S. Since its inception in 1993, the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program has invested in excess of $1 billion supporting the development of systems of care in 164 grantee sites across the country. Despite these efforts...
How are characteristics of communities associated with the implementation of the principles of systems of care (SOC)? This study uses multilevel modeling with a stratified random sample (N = 225) of US counties to explore community-level predictors of the implementation factors of the System of Care Implementation Survey. A model composed of commun...
Poor outcomes for youth who have emotional disturbances (ED), especially for those youth who are placed in special education programs, are well documented. Parent Connectors is a parent-to-parent support program delivered through weekly telephone calls to families of youth with ED in special education programs, with the aim of increasing the engage...
The authors present a multi-level framework for conceptualizing and designing measurement systems to improve decision-making in the treatment and prevention of child and adolescent mental health problems as well as the promotion of well-being. Also included is a description of the recommended drivers of the development and refinement of these measu...
Education and mental health integration will be advanced when the goal of mental health includes effective schooling and the goal of effective schools includes the healthy functioning of students. To build a solid foundation for this reciprocal agenda, especially within the zeitgeist of recent educational reforms, a change in the fundamental framew...
The lack of effective training and an inability to maintain fidelity are two major barriers to implementing evidence-based practices in schools. This study examined the level of implementation of evidence-based practices by teachers after they participated in a unique training program aimed at enhancing the use of evidence-based practices. The resu...
The purpose of this chapter is to provide information on and a framework for the necessary and ongoing merger and collaboration between the positive behavior support (PBS) and mental health communities to provide effective services for families and their children who have challenging behaviors. While both communities have recognized the need to col...
The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) publishes practice guides in education to bring the best available evidence and expertise to bear on the types of systemic challenges that cannot currently be addressed by single interventions or programs. Authors of practice guides seldom conduct the types of systematic literature searches that are the bac...
The inverse relationship between economic status and mental illness is well established. Less is known, however, about the nature of this relationship. A comparison of poor suburban and rural youth receiving services for their emotional and behavioral problems revealed more similarities than differences. Family income increased during the first yea...
This guide is intended to help elementary school educators as well as school and district administrators develop and implement effective prevention and intervention strategies that promote positive student behavior. The guide includes five recommendations and indicates the quality of the evidence that supports them: (1) Identify the specifics of th...
This poster presentation describes a project designed to develop, implement, and evaluate a program to provide parent support to families with children identified as having emotional disturbances (ED) and educated in special education programs in public schools. The goal of the project is to improve outcomes for children and their families through...
This poster presentation describes the challenges of employing a nested design in school-based mental health services research. Nested designs occur when the student is used as the statistical unit of analysis, which in certain cases may violate the independence of error assumption. This statistical effect of nesting is due to students being locate...
Evaluating school-based mental health services for children and youth with emotional disturbance (ED) has been a challenge for researchers. One particular challenge is the study design of using the student as the statistical unit of analysis, which in certain cases may lead to a violation of the "independence of error" assumption. However, the alte...
This article describes a process developed to increase the use of evidence-based instructional strategies by teachers of students in special education programs in a middle school and high school. The project developed a working partnership between university researchers and parents, teachers and administrators of students in special education progr...
This study describes the use of emergency mental health services by children over a 4-year period. Analysis of a statewide database revealed 51,861 or 15% of all involuntary examinations were conducted on children. These youth were on average a little over 14 years of age and law enforcement officials initiated the majority of examinations. The maj...
This article provides a national perspective on the schools and school programs for students with emotional disturbances (ED) who are served in special education, using nationally representative data from the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study (SEELS) and the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2).The authors describe school...
This article provides a national perspective of children and youth with emotional disturbances (ED) served in special education using data from the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study and the National LongitudinalTransition Study—2. Data sources comprise teachers,school records, the students, and their parents. Results indicate that chi...
The purposes of this article are to (a) describe the design features of two longitudinal studies,the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study (SEELS) and the National Longitudinal Transition Study—2 (NLTS2) and (b) outline their potential implications for policy, practice, research, advocacy, and system development for children and youth wit...
Methodological and practical challenges present formidable barriers to conducting empirical evaluations of school reform initiatives. Systematic information about school reform and improvement, and its relationship to special education, is even more difficult to obtain. In this study, the authors developed a reliable and valid method to (a) systema...
Increasingly, a public health framework is needed to develop and advance mental health systems both nationally and locally. This uniquely multidisciplinary work integrates knowledge derived from research in epidemiology, treatment methods, service systems, and public policy to delineate such a framework. The second edition has been expanded to give...
We describe the psychosocial characteristics of youth with an average age of 11.8 years served in special education due to emotional disturbances in urban communities (N = 158). Data were also collected describing service utilization, academic functioning, and family characteristics. Ten schools in three mid-size urban cities participated. Results...
Research and evaluation of the wraparound process has typically focused on outcomes, service providers, and costs. While many of these studies describe a process that is consistent with the wraparound approach, few studies have reported attempts to monitor or measure the treatment fidelity of the wraparound process. The purpose of this study was to...
In this article, the rationale, development, implementation, and evaluation of a school-based program for students with emotional disturbances who are served in a special education setting is described. The essential features of this program included a training program for professionals from the school and community agencies, the development and im...
This book presents innovative interventions for youth with severe emotional and behavioral disorders. The book is designed to fill a gap between the knowledge base and clinical practice through its presentation of theory, practice parameters, training requirements, and research evidence. Featuring community-based and state-of-the-art services for y...
In this article, we present findings from a study that compared academic progress over 5 years for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) and students with learning disabilities (LD). Additionally, a set of factors related to academic achievement (attendance, behavior offenses, type of special education setting, school mobility, and...
This report discusses four studies that investigated the effects of school reform on outcomes for children with emotional and behavioral disabilities. The studies included evaluations of the reform and restructuring activities of schools and school districts and assessment of student outcomes and use of metal health services. One study involved 115...
We present selected initial results from a study investigating the effects of school restructuring and reform activities on outcomes for students who are identified as having serious emotional and behavioral disabilities. A review of the literature revealed six key areas of reform for investigation: accountability, governance, parent involvement, i...
The School, Family, and Community Partnership Program is an integrated, school-based intervention for improving the outcomes of students served in classrooms for children who have emotional and behavioral disabilities. This report briefly describes the intervention, the characteristics of the children, and initial results of measuring fidelity to t...
This report discusses the activities and outcomes of a study that investigated the effects of social service reform, school restructuring, and special education reform for children and youth with emotional and behavioral disabilities. The study involved 116 caregivers of students (ages 8-14) with emotional or behavioral disabilities served in a spe...
Since 1982, there has been an explosion of activity in the field of children's mental health in terms of increased advocacy, federal and private support, the generation of new information, and, more recently, an increase in research. However, progress in the field of services for children and youth with emotional and behavioral disorders and their...
This paper presents baseline data on students (mean age 10 years) with severe emotional disturbances at four public schools, two in Kentucky and two in Vermont, who will be followed in an evaluation of the application of a coordinated, community-based system of care operating in both states. Data are summarized concerning the service systems operat...
This paper presents preliminary findings of a study evaluating effects of social service reform, school restructuring, and special education reform for children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral disabilities. Specifically, the study is attempting to identify successful school-based models, explicate the interventions used, and demonstra...
The development of comprehensive and collaborative service systems for children with serious emotional disturbance and their families from the advocacy of the 1960s to its current status is reviewed. These systems represent a coalition of the child-serving agencies (education, mental health, child welfare, and juvenile justice), health care, the pr...
The specific purpose of the study was to compile descriptive data on children with serious emotional disturbance (SED), including (a) demographic and family characteristics, (b) level of psychological and adaptive functioning, (c) services received, and (d) outcomes or how the children fared over time. The sample consisted of 812 children, ages 8 t...
This document presents the proceedings of the 8th Annual (1995) Children's Mental Health Conference. Eleven main sections focus on the following topics: (1) evaluation efforts within states and systems of care; (2) financing strategies of systems of care; (3) family participation; (4) school-based services; (5) the child welfare system; (6) the juv...
Individual effectiveness studies and reviews of studies are described for eight mental health service components for children and adolescents with severe emotional disturbances and their families. Components discussed include residential services, outpatient services, day treatment services, crisis and emergency management services, case management...
Assessments of social competence have played a major role in the identification and treatment of youth with emotional disorders. This study examined the construct validity of the social skills subtest of the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) when used with youth with emotional disorders. Comparisons were made to examine the convergent and discrimi...
The recent history of research on the service delivery system for children and adolescents who have serious emotional disabilities and their families is summarized. The article provides an overview of the changes in the response by the children's mental health system to this population, with an emphasis on developments in service delivery system an...
A lack of studies which evaluate system change by tracking client outcomes is noted in the children's mental health area. This deficit may be a result of the inability of researchers to define outcomes and to draw conclusions about which measures reflect the efficacy of services and service delivery systems. This paper reviews five social validatio...
This article presents the results of a survey of all state directors of mental health programs for children on the agreement
with and use of financial policies and practices which promote homeand community-based mental health care for children and
adolescents and their families. Whereas only five states reported the implementation of all the financ...
This article presents the results of a survey of all state directors of mental health programs for children on the agreement with and use of financial policies and practices which promote home- and community-based mental health care for children and adolescents and their families. Whereas only five states reported the implementation of all the fina...
This document presents a review of recent research literature on eight components in a system of care for children with serious emotional disturbances. It is intended to be a guide and source of information to communities for building systems of care. Components include: residential services (psychiatric hospitals and residential treatment centers)...
A model is presented for developing an evaluation of community mental health systems of care for children. This model is divided into three stages. The first, the Program Stage, examines the clients served, service components received, and level of consumer satisfaction. The second, the Effectiveness Stage, analyzes the impact of the service system...
The Alternatives to Residential Treatment Study (ARTS) was initiated to investigate the efficacy of several innovative, community-based, child- and family-focused service programs that serve children with serious emotional disorders and their families. This article describes the methodology developed for the study and reports the preliminary findin...
The National Adolescent and Child Treatment Study (NACTS) was designed to study children identified and served by the public mental health and special education systems as seriously emotionally disturbed. Children (N=812) and their parents (N=740) participated in the first wave of data collection in this longitudinal study. Subjects lived in six st...
it." 1 Children experience emotional difficulties that vary considerably in type as well as severity. These problems range from serious depression to moderate anxieties and fears, and from highly aggressive behavior to noncompliant behavior of a more passive nature. The consequences of these problems may include suicide, serious harm to others, and...
Family psychosocial functioning and its relation to psychopathology among adolescents with severe emotional disturbances (SED) was assessed. Subjects were 353 adolescents with SED, ages 12–18, and their parents. During a semistructured interview, adolescents were administered Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale (FACES-III), Diagnostic...
This study investigated determinants of state-anxiety responses to an ego-threatening event for 79 psychiatric inpatients. Specifically, state-anxiety levels were assessed in high and low trait-anxious internal and external patients immediately prior to the presentation of individualized psychological test feedback. Analysis of variance demonstrate...
