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The caregiving of fathers, especially adoptive fathers, is currently under-researched. This study explored the experience of adoptive fathers whose children displayed aggression and violence. Six Parent Development Interviews from a larger study were analysed using an attachment-informed Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Attachment discourse analysis derived from the Meaning of the Child Interview (MotC) and Parental Reflective Functioning Scale acted as ‘third voice’ in dialogue with the researchers’ and participants’ to explore the fathers’ experience interpersonally, in the context of their family relationships. Four superordinate themes were identified, with these fathers feeling ‘The Problem is in the Child’, at times sensing themselves persecuted by their child and lacking agency as a parent. ‘Confusion and Comparison’ highlighted the fathers’ sense of helplessness and longing for the ‘normal’ family life they associated with being a biological parent. The fathers also talked of ‘The Mixed Blessing of Feeling like a Father’, expressing extremes of anger but also fondness for their children. Participants engaged in ‘Looking Back’ both at their child’s trauma history and their own history of being parented, which in all but one father, also involved trauma. This left the fathers searching for answers to questions around biological versus relational origins of difficulties, and also pain arising from their own frustrated intention to create a better family life than they had experienced themselves in childhood. Common to all of this was the fathers’ sense of helplessness in being unable to contain or influence their child’s difficult behaviour, that negated or challenged their sense of fatherhood. We suggest a more relational approach that explicitly includes the father’s past and present experience, rather than treating the child’s aggressive behaviour in isolation. This could support fathers in recovering an internal experience of a shared relationship with, and being a father to, their adopted child.

Training programmes for the carers of adopted and looked after children have mixed efficacy, and the beneficial effects of their specific components are unclear. This article seeks to address this deficiency by assessing the impact of a parenting training programme distinguished by the inclusion of immersive videos. Eleven adoptive parents, seven foster carers and four special guardians participated. A mixed methods approach comprising questionnaires and interviews was utilised with data collected before, during and after training. Overall satisfaction with the training and trainers was high, and participants reported increased understanding and greater empathy regarding children’s early-life trauma and neglect (ELTN), plus enhanced competence and confidence in addressing any associated behavioural challenges. Qualitative analysis revealed differences in trainees’ responses according to the extent of their carer experience, with those relatively new to the work appreciating open-ended discussion and more experienced carers preferring discourse and role play that focused on the issues important to them. All participants valued the immersive videos, especially one that gave a toddler’s visual point of view in an environment where he was alternately shouted at and neglected. The study concluded that training programmes that include immersive videos can improve parenting knowledge and skills and that future research should examine their impact on child outcomes.

Background: Toybox is a kindergarten-based intervention programme targeting physical activity, sedentary behaviour, snacking and drinking in improving healthy energy balance-related behaviour among children attending kindergartens in Malaysia. It was based on a quasi-experimental design involving 780 children from 22 intervention kindergartens and 26 control kindergartens. This paper aims to report the process evaluation of this intervention. Methods: We assessed five process indicators: recruitment, retention, dosage, fidelity, and satisfaction in the intervention kindergartens. Data collection included teachers’ monthly logbook, and post-intervention feedback through questionnaire and focus group discussion with teachers, parents, and children. Results: A total of 1072 children were invited and 837 children completed the programme. Retention with the programme was 88.4% (with 110 children dropping out). 91% of the 44 teachers and their assistants engaged positively with one or more of the process evaluation data collection methods. In terms of dosage and fidelity, 76% of parents had received newsletters, tip cards and posters at the appropriate times. All teachers and their assistants reported being satisfied with the intervention programme, but also that there were some barriers to implementation including suitable environments (one example, insufficient space indoors to carry out activities to reduce sedentary behaviour), and that some of the kangaroo stories were not of sufficient interest to the children or too long to hold their attention. Parents reported that the materials were easy to understand and had improved their knowledge. More than 88% of parents were satisfied with the family-based activities, and had enjoyed them. The children were reported to show a change in positive behaviour in drinking water and consumption of fruits and vegetables.Conclusions: The Toybox programme was feasible to implement and acceptable, although several factors were usefully identified which could easily be improved before this intervention is scaled up and embedded into normal practice across Malaysia.

Emotional and behavioural problems are closely associated with impairments in regulating emotions and in executive functions (EF). To examine this further, the aim of the present study was to determine whether EF and emotion regulation at baseline would predict emotional and behavioural problem scores post-intervention, and further explore the extent to which emotion regulation mediates these outcomes. Participants were 41 primary school children who exhibited emotional and/or behavioural problems, aged 8 to 11 years. All the children completed measures of emotional and behavioural problems, cognitive emotion regulation, anxiety symptoms, and performed two experimental tasks to measure working memory and response inhibition before and after participating in a transdiagnostic Cognitive Behaviour Therapy-based programme, “Super Skills for Life” (SSL), and at 3-months follow-up. Results revealed significant reduction in the use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategy catastrophising and other blame following the intervention. Additionally, EF and emotion regulation was associated with outcomes for emotional problems and conduct problems. More specifically maladaptive emotion regulation strategy such as catastrophising and other blame was closely related with self-reports of emotional problems, likewise other blame, was also linked with scores of conduct problems. This study provides preliminary empirical support for EF and emotion regulation in predicting outcomes of emotional and behavioural problems in children following intervention.

There is an increasing focus on structural and social determinants of inequalities in young people's mental health across different social contexts. Taking higher education as a specific social context, it is unclear whether university attendance shapes the impact of intersectional social identities and positions on young people's mental health outcomes. Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA) was used to predict the odds that mental distress during adolescence, sex, socioeconomic status, sexual identity, ethnicity, and their intersections, were associated with young people's mental health outcomes at age 25, and whether this differed based on university attendance. Data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England cohort study were analysed with the MAIHDA approach, and the results did not reveal any evidence of multiplicative intersectional (i.e., aggravating) effects on young people's mental health outcomes. However, important main effects of social identities and positions (i.e., an additive model) were observed. The findings suggested that being female or identifying as a sexual minority increased the odds of young people experiencing mental health problems at age 25, although the odds of self-harming were half the size for sexual minorities who had attended university. Black and Asian individuals were less likely to declare a mental illness than White individuals. Young people who grew up in a more deprived area and had not attended university were more likely to experience mental health problems. These findings imply that mental health interventions for young people do not necessarily have to be designed exclusively for specific intersectional groups. Further, university attendance appears to produce better mental health outcomes for some young people, hence more investigation is needed to understand what universities do for young people, and whether this could be replicated in the wider general population.

The study examined whether the Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood, Revised Edition (DC: 0-3R; ZERO TO THREE, 2005) Parent-Infant Relationship Global Assessment Scale (PIR-GAS) is applicable to six European countries and contributes to the identification of caregiver-infant/toddler dyads with abusive relationship patterns. The sample consisted of 115 dyads with children's ages ranging from 1 to 47 months. Sixty-four dyads were recruited from community settings without known violence problems, and 51 dyads were recruited from clinical settings and already had been identified with violence problems or as being at risk for violence problems. To classify the dyads on the PIR-GAS categories, caregiver-child interactions were video-recorded and coded with observational scales appropriate for child age. To test whether the PIR-GAS allows for reliable identification of dyads with abusive relationship patterns, PIR-GAS ratings were compared with scores on the the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect's (ISPCAN) Child Abuse Screening Tool-Parental Version (ICAST-P; D.K. Runyan et al., ), a questionnaire measuring abusive parental disciplinary practices. It was found that PIR-GAS ratings differentiated between the general and the clinical sample, and the dyads with abusive patterns of relationship were identified by both the PIR-GAS and the ICAST-P. Interrater reliability for the PIR-GAS ranged from moderate to excellent. The value of a broader use of tools such as the DC: 0-3R to promote early identification of families at risk for infant and toddler abuse and neglect is discussed.

Essau, Preface. Lambert, Normal and Abnormal Development: What the Child Clinician Should Know. Frick, Munoz, Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder. Waschbusch, Andrade, King, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Vasa, Pine, Anxiety Disorders. Reinherz, Tanner, Paradis, Beardslee, Szigethy, Bond, Depressive Disorders. Zeiss, The Theoretical Implications of Research Findings on Adolescent Depression: Implications for Lewinsohn's Integrative Model of Depression and for a Lifespan Developmental Theory of Depression. Striegel-Moore, Franko, Adolescent Eating Disorders. Rhode, Andrews, Substance Use Disorders. Essau, Somatoform Disorders. Kovshoff, Grindle, Hastings, Autism. Samms-Vaughan, Learning Disorders.

Contents: Preface. Part I: General Issues. B.R. Loney, E.N. Lima, Classification and Assessment. C.A. Essau, Epidemiology and Comorbidity. J.D. Burke, R. Loeber, B.B. Lahey, Course and Outcomes. Part II: Risk Factors. H.K. Alvarez, T.H. Ollendick, Individual and Psychosocial Risk Factors. D. Gorman-Smith, The Social Ecology of Community and Neighborhood and Risk for Antisocial Behavior. W.S. Slutske, N.J. Cronk, R.E. Nabors-Oberg, Familial and Genetic Factors. R.O. Pihl, J. Vant, J-M. Asaad, Neuropsychological and Neuroendocrine Factors. Part III: Prevention and Intervention. M.R. Dadds, J.A. Fraser, Prevention Programs. W.M. Craig, A.R. Digout, Community-Oriented Interventions for Conduct Disorder: Theoretical Progress Needing Empirical Support. M.A. Southam-Gerow, Child-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapies. R.J. Prinz, T.L. Jones, Family-Based Interventions. C.M. Borduin, C.M. Schaeffer, S.T. Ronis, Multisystemic Treatment of Serious Antisocial Behavior in Adolescents. O.G. Bukstein, Psychopharmacology of Disruptive Behavior Disorders. Part IV: Outstanding Issues. C.A. Essau, Epilogue.

Es wird ein Überblick über die Prävalenz oder Häufigkeiten, Risikofaktoren und Vorboten von Störungen durch Substanzkonsum bei Jugendlichen gegeben. Die neuesten epidemiologischen Studien aus verschiedenen Ländern haben auf eine steigende Häufigkeit von Störungen durch Substanzkonsum bei Jugendlichen hingewiesen. Die Werte variieren von 5 bis 8% für Alkoholmißbrauch, für Alkoholabhängigkeit von 2 bis 32% und für Drogen von 5 bis 10%. Störungen durch Substanzkonsum treten signifikant häufiger bei Männern als bei Frauen auf und steigen mit dem Alter an. Andere Risikofaktoren wie biologische, familiäre und soziale Faktoren werden dargestellt. Verschiedene Interventions- und Präventionsprogramme werden vorgestellt und diskutiert. This manuscript reviews literature on the prevalence/frequency, risk factors, course and outcome of substance use disorders in adolescents. Recent epidemiological studies conducted in various parts of the world have indicated a high frequency of substance use disorders in adolescents, with values ranging from 5 to 8%; the rate for alcohol abuse and dependence range from 2 to 32%, and for drugs from 5 to 10%. Substance use disorders were significantly higher in males than in females, and that they increased with age. Other risk factors commonly reported for substance use disorders include biological, familial, and social factors. Several intervention and prevention programs are presented and discussed.