Article of the Month
October 2004
The State of Children’s Mental Health
The October 2004 Article of the Month comes from the National Health Policy Forum. The
article, while it does not speak specifically to school mental health,
certainly has implications for school personnel. The name of the article is The
Provider System for Children’s Mental Health: Workforce Capacity and Effective
Treatment.
The abstract of the article reads:
This issue brief
examines two issues that are key to meeting children’s unmet needs for mental
health care: ensuring that the provider supply is adequate and that the care
delivered is effective. It describes the shortage of qualified providers to
address children’s mental disorders, as well its possible causes; it describes
how managed care, to a certain extent, drives practice patterns; and it
discusses the gray areas in deciding which providers are most qualified to
deliver what care. In addition, this paper introduces what is known about
evidence-based care in children’s mental health, the extent to which it is
being taught and practiced, the extent to which health plans are adopting such
practices, and the effect such strategies may have on the makeup of the
children’s mental health provider field.