What is Evidenced-Based Practices (EBP)?
According to NAMI with input from the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), Child, Adolescent & Family Branch of the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), EBP's are tried and true treatments or services that have been studied and applied and most important, effective.
The positive outcomes for treating a mentally ill child include symptom reduction and improved functioning:
Improved school attendance and performance;
Improved family and peer relationships;
Decreased involvement with law enforcement/juvenile justice system;
Decreased rates of substance use and abuse; and
Reduction in self-harm and SUICIDE related behaviors.
With EBP's, there is prevention of Deep-end services use such as a decrease in hospitalizations, institutional care, and other out-of-home placements.
The negative factors about EBP's are that EBP is not widely available;
Many mental healthcare professionals are not trained for EBP;
Many mental health providers are reluctant to change their traditional practice;
Families do not seek providers open to change the way they practice mental healthcare; and
Many children have co-ocurring disorders that need to be included in the EBP.
When considering an EBP Intervention for your child and family, wrap-around supports and services are necessary for the best outcomes. The key players in the EBP incudes the child with the mental illness, the family, the provider, and/or the teacher.
Wrap-around processes are intensive home and community-based interventions and typically have a case manager involved and includes four phases:
Engagement and Team Preparation;
Initial Plan Development;
Plan Implementation; and
Transistion.
Many strategies are used in an EBP such as Cognitive Behaviorial Therapy which is when the youth is taught how to notice, take account of, and ultimately change his or her thinking and behaviors that impact their feelings. Basically, the child is taught how to interrupt negative thoughts. Stopping negative thoughts greatly reduces negative feelings. When negative feellings are reduced, negative behaviors are reduced as well.
Another strong strategy with EBP is that children/adolescents learn good coping and problem-solving skills. These strategies can be practiced as homework and in the community environment such as school and within the family.
An example of an EBP strategy for depression in children/adolescents is to examine relationships and how they affect a child's thinking and feelling. By focusing on these feelings, the child is helped to manage major changes in his or her life such as divorce or a death of a loved one. This interpersonal therapy is face-to-face and includes frequent phone contact with the therapist. Role modeling is also used in interpersonal therapy to zero in on key areas of distress for children: rejection from a sport's team, pregnancy, disputes with authority (parents), grief and loss (divorce, death), and peer relationships and peer conflicts.
With EBP's, families are trained and educated about helping the child or adolescent struggling with a mental illness, substance use, and disruptive behaviors, or all three.
For more serious mentally-ill children, a Treatment Foster Care intervention may be an option as well as a Mentoring Program.
EBP includes medication interventions!
You can learn much more about EBP's through research. Because children with mental illnesses will grow into adults with mental illnesses, it is well worth the investment to seek the best treatment for a child now so that the ill-affects of the mental illness will not limit their quality of life as children or adults!
Visit the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at:
www.aacap.org; American Psychological Association. Report of the Working Group on Psychotropic Medications for Children and ASdolescents: Psychopharmacological, Psychosocial, and Combined Interventions for Childhood Disorders: Evidence Base, Contextual Facts, and Future Directions:
www.apa.org/release/PsychotropicMedicationsReport.pdf; National Child Traumatic Stress Network:
www.nctsnet.org; "Taking Charge: An Introductory Guide to Choosing the Most Effective Services for the Mental, Behavioral, and Emotional Health of Youth With A System of Care:
www.air.org/tapartnership; Substance Abuse and Mental health Services Administration, Center for Mental Health Health Services (CMHS):
www.systemsofcare.samhsa.gov (click on programs);
National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices:
http://nrepp.samhsa.gov; Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies:
www.aabt.org "Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depressed Adolescents" (A resource for clinicians ONLY);
Functional Family Therapy Online:
www.fftinc.com Incredible Years:
www.incredibleyears.com Big Brothers Big Sisters:
www.BigBrothersBigSisters.org National Mentoring Center:
www.nwrel.org/mentoring Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation (CABF):
www.bpkids.org; Children and Adults with Attention Deficity/Hyperactivity Disroder (CHADD):
www.chadd.org Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health (FFCMH):
www.ffcmh.org; Mental Health American (MHA):
www.nhma.org; and
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI):
www.nami.org. ABOVE IS JUST A BRIEF SUMMARY ABOUT ANOTHER OPTION FOR SEEKING INFORMATON AND TREATMENT FOR A CHILD OR ADOLESCENT WITH A MENTAL ILLNESS. I ATTEMPTED TO LIST A VARIETY OF RESOURCES FOR MENTAL HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS, EDUCATORS, PARENTS/FAMILIES. THIS LIST IS NOT EXHAUSTIVE AND, OF COURSE, I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL, BUT JUST SPREADING THE WORD TO MAKE BLACK AMERICA AWARE OF MENTAL HEALTHCARE OPTIONS.
Now, there is no reason for anyone reading this to not reach out and help a child, adolescent, or family obtain the best mental healthcare supports and services. Mental illnesses affects us ALL! Be sure to read the final part of this mental health series, Part 7 of 7!
Today, I wish you use the information to save a child.
Agnes B. Levine
Author of: "Cooling Well Water: A Collection of Work By An African-American Bipolar Woman" ISBN 0975461206 Winter 2008 Release Pending
www.myspace.com/coolingwellwater (Subscribe Now)
Founder/President: Levine-Oliver Publisher, the Exclusive publishing home of Swaggie Coleman. Visit Swaggie's Voice© at:
http://swaggiecoleman.blogspot.com and win prizes!
Posted By: agnes levine
Saturday, October 11th 2008 at 7:48PM
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