Child and Adolescent Mental Health

• Children's and Adolescents' Mental Health
  
  Like adults, children and adolescents can have mental health disorders that interfere with the way they think, feel, and act. Mental health influences the ways individuals look at themselves, their lives, and others in their lives. Like physical health, mental health is important at every stage of life.
   
• Child, Adolescent and Family Branch
  
  The Child, Adolescent, and Family Branch of the Federal Center for Mental Health Services promotes and ensures that the mental health needs of children and their families are met within the context of community-based systems of care. Systems of care are developed on the premise that the mental health needs of children, adolescents, and their families can be met within their home, school, and community environments.
   
• Caring for Every Child's Mental Health
  
  Systems of Care the Caring for Every Child's Mental Health communications campaign is a public information and education program to:
  1. Increase public awareness about the importance of protecting and nurturing the mental health of young people.
  2. Foster recognition that many children have mental health problems that are real, painful, and sometimes severe.
  3. Encourage caregivers to seek early, appropriate treatment and services.
   
• The National Child Traumatic Stress Network
  
  The mission of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) is to raise the standard of care and improve access to services for traumatized children, their families and communities throughout the United States. This site includes an article on school planning for disasters and the aftermath of September 11, 2001.
   
• Youth Violence Prevention
  
  The CMHS initiative on school violence focuses on the collective involvement of families, communities, and schools to build resiliency to disruptive behavior disorders.
   
• Make Time to Listen, Take Time to Talk 15+
  
  The campaign is part of the CMHS School Violence Prevention Initiative and is designed to provide practical guidance to parents and caregivers about "how to" create time to listen and take time to talk with their children.
   
• Listening Dads Are Champs 15+
  
  Children whose fathers are highly involved with them in a positive way do better in school, demonstrate better psychological well-being and lower levels of delinquency, and ultimately attain higher levels of education and economic self-sufficiency.
   
• Family Guide To Keeping Youth Mentally Healthy and Drug Free
  
  A public education Web site, developed to support the efforts of parents and other caring adults to promote mental health and prevent the use of alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs among 7- to 18-year-olds.
   
• Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General
  
  This Surgeon General's report seeks to focus on action steps that all Americans can take to help address the problem, and continue to build a legacy of health and safety for our young people and the Nation as a whole.
   
• Publications on Children and Families
  
  Free information from the Center for Mental Health Services about children and families.

Shaping Mental Health Services Toward Recovery

Evidence-Based Practices:

Shaping Mental Health Services Toward Recovery

Tool Kits are currently in production. We expect delivery within a few weeks. Please download materials as needed.

Shaping Mental Health Services Toward Recovery

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and its Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) are pleased to introduce six Evidence-Based Practice Implementation Resource Kits to encourage the use of evidence-based practices in mental health. The Kits were developed as one of several SAMHSA/CMHS activities critical to its science-to-services strategy. We expect to identify additional practices for future Kits.

The Kits contain many useful resources, including:

• Information Sheets for all stakeholder groups
• Introductory videos
• Practice demonstration videos
• Workbook or manual for Practitioners

Each of the six Resource Kits is described below.

Illness Management and Recovery

The Illness Management and Recovery program strongly emphasizes helping people to set and pursue personal goals and to implement action strategies in their everyday lives. The information and skills taught in the program include:

• Recovery strategies
• Practical facts about mental illness
• The Stress-Vulnerability Model and strategies for treatment
• Building social support
• Using medication effectively
• Reducing relapses and coping with stress
• Coping with problems and symptoms
• Getting needs met in the mental health system

Medication Management Approaches in Psychiatry

The Medication Management Approaches in Psychiatry program focuses on using medication in a systematic and effective way, as part of the overall treatment for severe mental illness. The ultimate goal is to ensure that medications are prescribed in a way that supports a person�s recovery efforts. The program includes:

• Guidelines and steps for medication decision making, based on current Evidence and outcomes
• Systematic monitoring and record keeping of medications
• Consumer and family member Involvement

Assertive Community Treatment

The goal of Assertive Community Treatment is to help people stay out of the hospital and to develop skills for living in the community, so that their mental illness is not the driving force in their lives. Assertive community treatment offers services that are customized to the individual needs of the consumer, delivered by a team of practitioners, and available 24 hours a day. The program addresses needs related to:

• Symptom management
• Housing
• Finances
• Employment
• Medical care
• Substance abuse
• Family life
• Activities of daily life

Family Psychoeducation

Family Psychoeducation involves a partnership among consumers, families and supporters, and practitioners. Through relationship building, education, collaboration, problem solving, and an atmosphere of hope and cooperation, family psychoeducation helps consumers and their families and supporters to:

• Learn about mental illness
• Master new ways of managing their mental illness
• Reduce tension and stress within the family
• Provide social support and encouragement to each other
• Focus on the future
• Find ways for families and supporters to help consumers in their recovery

Supported Employment

Supported Employment is a well-defined approach to helping people with mental illnesses find and keep competitive employment within their communities. Supported employment programs are staffed by employment specialists who have frequent meetings with treatment providers to integrate supported employment with mental health services. The core principles of this program include:

• Eligibility based on consumer choices and preferences
• Supported employment as an integrated treatment
• Continuous follow-along supports
• Help with moving beyond the patient role and developing new employment-related Roles as part of the recovery process

Co-occurring Disorders: Integrated Dual Diagnosis Treatment

Integrated Dual Diagnosis Treatment is for people who have co-occurring disorders, mental illness and a substance abuse addiction. This treatment approach helps people recover by offering both mental health and substance abuse services at the same time and in one setting.

This approach includes:

• Individualized treatment, based on a person�s current stage of recovery
• Education about the illness
• Case management
• Help with housing
• Money management
• Relationships and social support
• Counseling designed especially for people with co-occurring disorders