Trainees consistently mentioned how helpful it was to have laws relevant to their clinical practice explained in a way that removed the mystery and anxiety associated with lawyers, courts, and judges. Each volume in the series sets forth, in a clear, straightforward, and user-friendly manner, pertinent legislation and court cases, covering why the law was written, what the law says, and how the law affects clinical practice.

-Child and elder abuse.

This expansive, three-volume set addresses the complexities of interconnectivity, therapeutic capacity, and the competencies needed in order to provide sophisticated and integrated community mental health care—both in the United States and within a global community. The Praeger Handbook of Community Mental Health Practice provides an essential framework that will serve university educators, students, new practitioners, and experienced therapists alike as they adapt to new approaches to community mental health and respond to changing laws governing mental health provision across state, national, and global levels. Volume one considers the structures, challenges, and expectations of community mental health, familiarizing readers with key issues such as service delivery, funding, and key models of intervention and care. Volume two provides an in-depth exploration of the specific issues of working with populations that participate in and benefit from community mental health services, including addiction, school-based services, juvenile and adult justice, and veteran's services. In Volume three, the contributors address specific needs, considerations, and concerns relevant to working in the global community, including disaster services, trauma, working with children, and providing training in international settings.

This compendium of 17 articles addresses the goals set forth by the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in its 2003 report, Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America. The report represents the first time since the Carter Administration that such a high-level group evaluated U.S. mental health care. The report painted a dismal picture of the nation's mental health system, saying the system was so broken that it was "beyond simple repair." The Commission said that current services focused on "managing disabilities" rather than helping patients achieve a meaningful life in their communities. It also stated that mental health service providers ignored the preferences of consumers and their families. The articles in Transforming Mental Health Services: Implementing the Federal Agenda for Change, originally published between 2006 and 2009 in Psychiatric Services (journal of the American Psychiatric Association), offer recommendations to assist adults with serious mental illness and children with serious emotional disturbances. They include a series of reforms in which the emphasis is on recovery as an achievable goal, and the need for a person-centered orientation in service delivery. There is also discussion of the reasons many service providers resist using a recovery orientation and how this can be remedied. Transforming Mental Health Services: Implementing the Federal Agenda for Change consists of updates of papers written by the Commission's subcommittees addressing issues fundamental to those living with mental illness. It is organized into four sections: The first focuses on the interface between mental health and general health, and on employment, housing, and Medicaid financing. The second continues addressing financing and Medicaid as well as issues related to school mental health, recovery, transformation of data systems, and acceleration of research. The third includes reports from four states with transformation initiatives designed to ensure that consumers have a strong voice in the development of recovery-oriented services. The final section describes progress five years after the President's Commission Report and concludes with a proposal by the current director of the Center for Mental Health Services for a public health model of mental health care for the 21st century. This compilation of well-researched and well-written articles offers an excellent resource for frontline care providers, facility administrators and advocates. It serves as an equally valuable resource for state policy makers who wish to present a convincing case that change is happening and that the recommendations can be translated into effective policies. Although consumers and their families will receive support for their perception that service providers ignore their needs, they will also be encouraged that change for the better is coming to the U.S. mental health care system.

Community Mental Health is unique in that it focuses specifically on mental health at the community level. The authors carefully outline the essential skills that health professionals need in order to identify mental health concerns and develop effective programs for communities encountering symptoms of mental disorders or illness. The text includes up-to-date information about mental health issues across the lifespan, the mental health care system, prominent mental health concerns faced by many communities, as well as information about interventions and model programs. The breadth of topics related to community mental health addressed include: indicators of illness and problems, methods of prevention and promotion, evaluation, and research. Important Notice: The digital edition of this book is missing some of the images or content found in the physical edition.

In this report, part of the RAND Corporation's Gun Policy in America initiative, researchers seek objective information about what the scientific literature reveals about the likely effects of various gun laws. In this second edition of an earlier work, the authors add five gun policies to the 13 examined in the original analysis and expand the study time frame to incorporate a larger body of research. With those adjustments, the authors synthesize the available scientific data on the effects of 18 policies on firearm deaths, violent crime, the gun industry, defensive gun use, and other outcomes. By highlighting where scientific evidence is accumulating, the authors hope to build consensus around a shared set of facts that have been established through a transparent, nonpartisan, and impartial review process. In so doing, they also illuminate areas where more and better information could make important contributions to establishing fair and effective gun policies.