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Abstract: 

The children’s behavioral health field has struggled for decades to determine and implement effective practices for the estimated six to eight million youths characterized as having “serious emotional disturbance” (SED). Defined as having a diagnosable mental health disorder and significant impairment in functioning in home, school, and/or community, youths with SED are those with the most complex emotional and behavioral problems in the system. Typically, they have multiple mental health diagnoses, academic challenges, and family stressors such as poverty and parental mental health and substance abuse problems. They are thus unlikely to respond to any single evidence-based intervention, and most are involved in multiple child-serving systems (e.g., child welfare, mental health, special education, juvenile justice). Coordination of care is therefore often necessary to ensure that services are well coordinated across systems, families are fully engaged in treatment, strategies are well-matched to priority needs, and the overall service plan is holistic and capable of addressing parental and sibling challenges (Bruns et al., 2010).

Keywords: familial breakdown, out-of-home placement, planning, followthrough, progress monitoring, transition, community based services, high-fidelity

Affiliations:  1: Maine Department of Health and Human Service; 2: Maine Department of Health and Human Service; 3: Univ of Washington.