Mental Health Services for Children and Teens: A Community Approach
By David Backes, January 10 2013
In an effort to more effectively provide mental health services for children and teens, funds were provided to create The Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program, also known as the Children’s Mental Health Initiative (CMHI)--a cooperative agreement program administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in the Department of Health and Human Services.
The CMHI helps promote the coordination of the multiple and often fragmented systems that serve children and youth from birth to age 21 diagnosed with a serious emotional disturbance and their families.
SAMHSA’s report, “The Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program, Evaluation Findings” found encouraging results, including self-reported anxiety symptoms decreasing for 24.2 percent of youth from intake to 12 months, and for 30.2 percent of youth from intake to 24 months.
The system of care philosophy revolves around the following eight principles that state services should be:
- Family driven
- Based on service plans that are individualized, strengths based, and evidence informed
- Youth guided
- Culturally and linguistically competent
- Provided in the least restrictive environment possible
- Community based
- Accessible
- Collaborative and coordinated through an interagency network
Topics: Adolescent Mental Health, No bio box

Relying on negative reinforcement and punishment to rehabilitate a troubled teen is not effective, writes retired juvenile court Judge William Hitchcock in a Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (JJIE) op-ed. While teens should be held accountable for their offenses, courts should also help them get back on track and away from a life of crime. One way to do this is by building on their strengths.
I am pleased to share with you the second edition of “
On Thursday, December 6, nearly 250 Nebraskans gathered in Lincoln for Voices for Children’s first ever
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Calling all researchers! The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is opening up access to its Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) and National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) confidential data for research purposes.
Juvenile Justice Reform
SAMHSA’s
The
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And this is it, folks, the end of our countdown! We've already shared the
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Continuing our countdown of the top blog posts from 2012, here's 15 - 11.
Continuing our countdown of the top juvenile justice blog posts of 2012, here are numbers 16-20:
This has been quite a year for our juvenile justice blog. Not only has readership more than doubled (thank you!) but we've partnered with a number of great organizations and journalists to provide you with more frequent analysis, research and ideas for reform.