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Traditionally, assessment of youths' emotional and behavioral functioning within community mental health is conducted from a deficit-based approach, often excluding the measurement of strengths. Assessing youths' emotional and behavioral strengths can provide a comprehensive understanding of youths' functioning and better inform treatment planning. The Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale-Second Edition (BERS-2) is a standardized, norm-referenced assessment of the behavioral and emotional strengths of youth ages 5-18. The psychometric properties of the BERS-2 scores are well established; however, most previous studies have focused on youth within school settings. As such, the purpose of the present study was to evaluate the convergent validity of the scores from the caregiver version of the BERS-2 with a large, diverse sample of youth referred for community mental health services. The correlation coefficients between the BERS-2 scores and scores from the Child Behavior Checklist and the Columbia Impairment Scale were moderate to large, and in the expected directions. Thus, findings support the convergent validity and use of the BERS-2 scores for youth receiving community mental health services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many measures that assess parenting skills or practices, such as behavior, beliefs, coping mechanisms, reactions to stress, or discipline. However, little is known about the psychometric quality of these parenting measures. This information is essential for practitioners and researchers to aide in the selection of the most valid and reliable measures to assess parenting behavior or attitudes. This study examined the psychometric quality among parenting measures published from 1985 to 2009. After the initial search 164 measures were identified, but were reduced to 25 measures that supplied some degree of psychometric information, were published in the United States or Canada, and were in English. Measures were compared across numerous categories including respondent type, norming data, administration type, and ten psychometric variables such as internal consistency, content validity, and predictive validity. Out of the 25 measures, seven had no acceptable psychometric properties, seven had only 1-2 acceptable ratings on psychometric properties, six had between 3 and 4 acceptable psychometric ratings, none had between 5 and 6 acceptable ratings, and only five had strong psychometric properties in seven or more of the 10 categories. Likewise, only five measures provided and norming information and 14 measures provided scoring procedures. Implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that between 40 and 98 % of youth entering residential treatment are taking at least one psychotropic medication and that psychotropic medication management is often an integral component of treatment in residential settings. To determine physician opinion about the difficulty of managing psychotropic medications for youth in residential treatment and to determine the resources that are used in the process, a survey study was conducted. Overall, physicians indicated that youth involved in residential settings were much more complex than those in traditional outpatient settings, due to multiple mental health diagnoses, polypharmacy, and unknown treatment histories. They also reported that many existing resources are not applicable to youth, particularly those in residential settings, and that they are difficult to read and interpret. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information from multiple sources is recommended when assessing students' emotions and behaviors. Relatively few studies about cross informant agreement of behavioral and emotional strengths exist, especially for students with special education needs. The purpose of this study was to extend the cross informant agreement research of the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (BERS-2) with a sample of Finnish parents, teachers and students. First, we studied the cross informant agreement of students' behavioral and emotional strengths between informants. Second, we explored the agreement separately for students with and without special education needs. Finally, we studied the convergent and divergent (discriminant) correlations of the Finnish BERS-2. The results show that the cross informant agreement of students' behavioral and emotional strengths were small to large with correlation coefficients ranging from .11 to .58 between different informants. The cross informant correlations, however, were higher in magnitude for students who receive special education support ( r = .29 to .78) than for those students who do not receive support ( r = −.02 to .45). Mean convergent correlations were higher than mean divergent correlations. The results suggest that the Finnish BERS-2 is a reliable measure in assessing student strengths across informants. The limitations, future research directions, and implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the time of entry into residential treatment, many youth have prescriptions for one or more psychotropic medications. It is not well understood why some youth are prescribed only one psychotropic medication while others may be prescribed more. We sought to determine if differences existed between youth entering residential treatment with monopharmacy ( n = 77) versus youth entering with polypharmacy ( n = 103). Youth were compared across demographic, family, behavioral, mental health, and psychotropic medication variables. The only significant differences identified were related to the numbers of youth with prescriptions across the different psychotropic classes. As would be expected, youth experiencing polypharmacy were more likely to have prescriptions within each class. Implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth departing from out-of-home care settings face numerous challenges as they adapt to new settings or return to placements that have been unsuccessful in the past. Although several thousand youth face this transition annually, little is known about their specific needs and risks at departure. To better identify needs and risks, we evaluated the discharge data of 640 youth served in a residential group care setting by addressing the following questions: (a) to what settings do youth depart following a stay in residential group care, (b) what are the demographic, family, educational, behavioral, and departure characteristics of youth at departure, and (c) do these characteristics differ for youth departing to different levels of restrictiveness? Results indicate significant differences on youth characteristics based on levels of restrictiveness at departure placement. As one might expect, youth departing to more restrictive placements presented a broad host of challenges across domains, while those departing to less restrictive settings demonstrated fewer needs and departed with greater educational and behavioral gains. Results provide support for the development and planning of targeted aftercare programs designed to promote the short and long term functioning of youth served in out-of-home care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few years, the number of children referred to and placed into the child welfare system has grown at an alarming rate. The growth has taxed the child welfare system's ability to provide reasonable services and to systematically investigate the outcome of these services. The need to develop a comprehensive data base on who receives child welfare services and the outcomes of these services has been raised by several leading professionals and organizations. The purpose of this article is to describe the personal, family, and service utilization characteristics of children who received services at a family preservation environment in an urban setting. Descriptive data are presented on 269 children who received services in this setting between 1991-1994. Results are discussed in terms of previous research, and implications for service delivery and future research efforts are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined interrelationships among personal, family, and prior service utilization data collected on young people selected to participate in a Chicago suburban area system of care, with a detailed consideration of a subset of 176 White participants aged 9-20 years. Data obtained through a review of archival information and then analyzed included WISC IQ, grade retention, medication status, DSM diagnostic group, adjudication, marital status of parents, living situation before selection, maternal employment, public assistance status, family risk status, and placement history. Results showed that IQ and specific DSM diagnostic category were not important correlates of personal, family, or placement variables, although having a DSM diagnosis of any kind was. Family risk factors, including family history of mental illness, substance abuse, criminal conviction, and violence in the family, were related to other family variables, primarily. Adjudication and prescribed medication appeared to have been alternative responses to these young people's problems. A cluster analysis of these system of care participants' placement histories indicated five clusters characterized by varied personal and family correlates, as well as different patterns of placement usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased attention to the plight of children and youth with emotional or behavioral disorders (EBD) and their families has led to innovations in the manner in which these individuals are served. Two such innovations have been the development of public systems of comprehensive, community-based care and individualized wraparound services. This study was part of one community's attempt to merge these two innovations and provide individualized wraparound services to children and youth with EBD through the auspices of public agencies. Direct service providers were surveyed to gather their input into how such services could best be developed and implemented. The survey focused on existing barriers to providing services and specific service priorities for system development. Methods and results are presented. Implications for the local system and future research needs are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The placement of students into educational settings is perhaps one of the most debated issues in special education, particularly for students with emotional and behavioral disordes (EBD). A primary consideration in this decision is the restrictiveness of the setting yet no scale to assess restrictiveness of educational settings exists. We undertook two surveys that asked respondents to rate the restrictiveness of 18 educational placements. The first survey was sent to a national panel of experts, the second survey was sent to supervisors of programs for students with EBD. The results of the surveys led to the development of the Scale to Assess Restrictiveness of Educational Settings. This scale is designed to provide a measure of restrictiveness of educational settings that can provide data to evaluate student profess and program outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We created a 40-item teacher rating scale to assess learning, social, and personal problems among students with serious emotional disturbance and no known handicaps. Special and regular educators completed ratings on 269 students with emotional disturbance and 49 nondisabled pupils aged 12-17 across the U.S. We categorized all subjects by race, gender, population density of residence, family status, and age, and students with serious emotional disturbance were also classified by type of placement, length of time in special education, and use of prescriptive medication. Results indicated that (a) adolescents with emotional disturbance had significantly more learning, social, and personal problems than nondisabled peers; (b) both males and females with emotional disturbance had more problems than similar gender nondisabled youth; (c) younger females had more problems than older ones; (d) youth with emotional disturbance in more restrictive placements had more problems than those in less restrictive educational settings; and (e) subjects with emotional disturbance on psychotropic medication had more personal problems than others taking stimulants or no prescription drugs. We discuss the findings related to other similar studies and the need for additional information on the interaction between learning, social, and personal difficulties among students identified as seriously emotionally disturbed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]