2007 APA Gold Award: Helping Youths With Severe Emotional Disturbances at Risk of Institutionalization

Abstract

Among the most pressing problems affecting the field of child and adolescent psychiatry today are those that have resulted from chronic, potentially malignant interactions between youths and their social environment. As has been well documented by numerous studies in developmental psychopathology, various types of psychosocial adversity adversely affect a child's development and place the child at increased risk of requiring institutional treatments. Risk factors for psychosocial adversity are additive in their deleterious effect and tend to aggregate. These risk factors include poverty, racism, parental mental illness and substance abuse, domestic violence, abuse and neglect, inadequate housing, dangerous neighborhoods, poor schools, and lack of recreational and vocational resources. In order to be helpful to a youth with serious emotional disturbance, an intervention must engage all of the family members, as well as appropriate service providers, to mitigate and reverse these risk factors while simultaneously providing the youth with effective mental health services. The Intensive In-Home Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Service (IICAPS) family-focused, child-centered approach shows promise of being an effective practice in the treatment of children with serious psychiatric disorders in the context of chronic, pervasive exposure to negative environmental influences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).