As attention to the issue of youth with mental disorders in the juvenile justice system has increased in the past decade, a number of approaches have emerged to assist the field in identifying and responding to their mental health needs. One of the most important advances is the development of demonstrated effective interventions for treating youth. These demonstrated interventions are commonly referred to as evidence-based practices: interventions that involve standardized treatment and that have been shown through controlled research to result in improved outcomes across multiple research groups.
These advances have occurred in a number of areas that relate to the Center’s target population, including mental health, substance abuse, and juvenile justice prevention and treatment of youth. The following resources and links provide information and descriptions about evidence-based practices from these different populations. While there is much overlap in the evidence-based practices identified in these reviews, there are also differences. For example, Multisystemic Therapy appears on most lists while the assessment of medication treatments tends to be found only in the mental health reviews. These references relate primarily to reviews of treatment approaches for youth. There are other resources that focus primarily on adults such as the National Evidence Based Practices Program at Dartmouth (http://www.dartmouth.edu/dms/cfm/research/mentalhealth.shtml). For the most part, information can be accessed directly through the web links. For other information or single copies of listed articles, contact the NCMHJJ.
mental health and substance abuse
Effective Treatment for Mental Disorders
in Children and Adolescents
Barbara J. Burns, Ph.D., Kimberly Hoagwood, Ph.D. and Patricia J. Mrazek, Ph.D.
The authors of this work reviewed the published literature for effective interventions for mental disorders in children and adolescents. They organize their findings into the following categories: prevention, traditional forms of treatment, community-based interventions, crisis and support services, and treatment for two prevalent disorders.
The strongest evidence base supportive of positive outcomes for children and families exists for five forms of services and treatments: home-based services, therapeutic foster care, some forms of case management, and both pharmaceutical and psychosocial treatments for specific syndromes.
Reference: Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, Vol. 2, No. 4. 1999:199-244.
2000 Exemplary Substance Abuse Programs
Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration
The Exemplary Awards recognize prevention programs that are innovative and effective and that successfully reduce alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use, both as promising programs and model programs. These programs embody a wide range of prevention strategies, including community mobilization, cultural enhancement, skills and resiliency-building, mentoring, parent education, health promotion and social competency. The report briefly describes 28 programs, among which are: Brief Strategic Family Therapy, Bullying Prevention Program, Family Effectiveness Training, Multisystemic Therapy, Project SUCCESS and STARS for Families.
Link: http://modelprograms.samhsa.gov/pdfs/exemplarybooklet.pdf
Columbia University Guidelines for
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Referral
Columbia University, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
The Guidelines for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Referral is a template specifically designed to assist community mental health agencies in identifying appropriate treatments for youth who have been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. The Guidelines are based on empirical research describing treatments with demonstrated efficacy for treating these youth. For each diagnostic category, medication and psychosocial approaches that have demonstrated efficacy are listed.
Link: http://www.promotementalhealth.org/downloads/Guidelines.pdf
Related article: Gail Wasserman, Susan Ko, and Peter Jensen,. Columbia guidelines for child and adolescent mental health referral. Emotional & Behavioral Disorders in Youth. Winter 2001: 9-14, 23.
National Registry of Effective Prevention
Programs
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Department
of Health and Human Services
SAMHSA established the National Registry of Effective Prevention Programs (NREPP) to assist its practice and policy making constituents in learning more about science-based substance abuse prevention programs. NREPP is a resource to identify and review effective prevention programs. These programs come from four primary sources: existing scientific literature, effective programs assessed by other rating processes, solicitations to the field and the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. Some examples are Multisystemic Therapy, Brief Strategic Family Therapy and Family Effectiveness Training.
Link: http://www.modelprograms.samhsa.gov/template.cfm?page=nrepbutton
Turning Knowledge into Practice: A Manual for Behavioral Health Administrators and Practitioners About Understanding and Implementing Evidence-Based Practices
A manual is available from the Technical Assistance Collaborative, Inc. (TAC) that has been designed for clinicians and administrators in provider organizations and their chief partners – primary consumers and family members. The manual answers questions such as: what are evidence-based practices and why should they be used, what do the terms mean and what are some examples? This user-friendly, how-to manual includes a bibliography and tips for reading and understanding the literature.
Link: http://www.tacinc.org/index/viewPage.cfm?pageId=114
juvenile justice
Blueprints for Violence Prevention
Overview
Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado has launched a national violence prevention initiative to identify effective youth violence prevention programs. The project, Blueprints for Violence Prevention, identifies eleven prevention and intervention programs that meet a strict scientific standard of program effectiveness. These model programs, called Blueprints, have been effective in reducing adolescent violent crime, aggression, delinquency, and substance abuse. Some of the programs identified are : Big Brothers, Big Sisters; Functional Family Therapy; Life Skills Training; Multisystemic Therapy; Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care; Bullying Prevention Program; and The Incredible Years: Parent, Teach and Child Training Series.
Link: www.colorado.edu/cspv/blueprints/
The Comparative Costs and Benefits
of Programs to Reduce Crime
Washington State Institute for Public Policy
This report describes the “bottom line” economics of various programs that try to reduce crime in the state of Washington. The general procedure followed in this study involved searching for research-based evidence about what works and what doesn’t to lower crime rates, and then independently estimating the comparative economics that these programs could have. Researchers evaluated the costs and benefits of certain juvenile and adult criminal justice policies, violence prevention programs and other efforts to decrease particular “at-risk” behaviors of youth. Among those reviewed are Multisystemic Therapy, Functional Family Therapy, Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care and diversion programs such as intensive probation/parole and juvenile boot camps.
Link: http://www.wa.gov/wsipp/crime/costben.html
Strengthening America’s Families:
Model Programs for Delinquency Prevention
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and Substance Abuse Services
Administration
The purpose of this directory of model programs is to encourage community agencies to strongly consider research results regarding program effectiveness when selecting programs for implementation. The programs selected are divided into categories based upon the degree, quality and outcomes of research associated with them. Also included is a program matrix for help in determining which programs may meet the needs of a given population. Among those ranked exemplary are Functional Family Therapy, Multisystemic Therapy, Treatment Foster Care, Strengthening Families and Brief Strategic Family Therapy.
Link: http://www.strengtheningfamilies.org/html/model_programs.html
Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon
General
Office of the Surgeon General, Department of Health and Human Services
Numerous agencies and organizations have published recommendations on “what works” in youth violence prevention, but in many cases there is little consistency regarding the specific programs they recommend. The reason for this inconsistency is a lack of uniformly applied scientific standards for what works. Chapter Five of this report identifies a set of standards based on scientific consensus and applies those standards to the literature on youth violence prevention in order to identify general strategies and programs that work, or that are promising. The top five programs include Functional Family Therapy, Mulisystemic Therapy and Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care.
Blueprint