Tracking Behavioral Progress Within a Children's Mental Health System

Author:

Bruns Eric J.1,Burchard John D.2,Froelich Peter3,Yoe James T.4,Tighe Theodore5

Affiliation:

1. ERIC J. BRUNS, PhD, recently received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Vermont. His research interests are guided by a concern for providing innovative, family-centered, and socially responsible health and mental health services to children and their families.

2. JOHN D. BURCHARD, PhD, is a professor of psychology at the University of Vermont. He is a former Vermont state commissioner of Social and Rehabilitative Services and one of the leading proponents of community-based, individualized wraparound services for children and their families. Address: John D. Burchard, Department of Psychology, University of Vermont, John Dewey Hall, Burlington, VT 05405; e-mail: J_BURCHA@dewey.uvm.edu

3. PETER FROELICH, PhD, is a sociologist currently teaching at the University of Hawaii. Dr. Froelich has consulted as a planner and evaluator for numerous children's mental health programs, special education programs, juvenile corrections programs, and collaborative community service system development efforts.

4. JAMES T. YOE, PhD, is currently director of quality improvement and evaluation at the Maine Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services. Dr. Yoe served as director of the CMHS National Evaluation of the Comprehensive Mental Health Services Program for Children with Severe Emotional Disturbances.

5. THEODORE TIGHE, PhD, is currently an evaluator of children's services with the Vermont Department of Developmental and Mental Health Services. His research interests are in the design and evaluation of intensive family-based services and systems of care for children with severe emotional disturbance and their families.

Abstract

In recent years, children's mental health agencies have been called on to demonstrate increased accountability for the services they provide. At the same time, the advent of managed care approaches to service provision for children and their families has placed increased emphasis on the use of outcome measures to monitor client progress as well as track system efficiency. In this article, we begin by discussing the role of behavioral adjustment as an outcome variable for children's mental health. Then, the Vermont Community Adjustment Tracking System (VT-CATS), which includes four behavioral instruments designed to provide intensive, ongoing, and interpretable behavioral assessment of a service system's most challenging children and adolescents, is described. Next, the adjustment indicator checklists that compose VT-CATS are described, including the rationale behind their development, structures, and psychometric properties. Finally, the ability of VT-CATS to address agencies' multiple evaluation demands is discussed, including examples of behavior tracking of individual clients, evaluation of the impact of an intervention, and the use of behavioral data to guide service system policy.

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Subject

Psychiatry and Mental health,Clinical Psychology,Developmental and Educational Psychology,Education

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