Citation

Anderson JA, Mohr WK. Educ. Treat. Child. 2003; 26(1): 52-74.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, West Virginia University Press)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The fragmented nature of the U.S. mental health system with its focus on tertiary care has created serious gaps in mental health service provision and consequently a large percentage of children with mental health needs receive little, if any intervention in schools or communities. For those children and their families who are receiving services, the services system historically lacked home and community treatment options and outcomes for this group have continued to be poor. Moreover, identifying children as having emotional disturbances is difficult because this is a diverse group presenting a wide variety of mental health needs and current assessment technologies in both mental health and education are limited in the information that they can provide. These issues highlight the challenges of providing effective services to children with emotional disturbances and their families and emphasize the need for a comprehensive conceptual framework to guide research, assessment, and service provision. A developmental ecological perspective provides a useful model for addressing the complexities of emotional disturbances. The systems of care movement in children's mental health, which is congruent with the developmental ecological perspective, also provides a mechanism for responding to the multidimensional aspects of these kinds of disabilities.

Language: en