Seasoned child psychologist and author Ellen B. Braaten offers clear and expert guidance to help anxious parents navigate the complexities of mental health care. Includes an overview of the issues involved in diagnosing and treating children; detailed information on common childhood disorders; and an in depth discussion of primary treatment approaches.

This guide was created to promote the early identification of children and adolescents with mental health and substance use problems as well as to provide guidance, tools, and resources for early identification--including a compendium of the most developmentally, culturally, and environmentally appropriate screening instruments. SAMHSA developed the guide using the input of the members of the Federal/National Partnership* (FNP) Early Identification Workgroup, chaired by representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

A set of teaching/couseling aids for professionals who offer parent education classes, parent counseling, or guidance to parents on child rearing and discipline.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was designed to increase health insurance quality and affordability, lower the uninsured rate by expanding insurance coverage, and reduce the costs of healthcare overall. Along with sweeping change came sweeping criticisms and issues. This book explores the pros and cons of the Affordable Care Act, and explains who benefits from the ACA. Readers will learn how the economy is affected by the ACA, and the impact of the ACA rollout.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Advice on Helping Your Loved Ones, from the medical director of the country's largest state mental health system and the mental health editor of The Huffington Post More than fifty million people a year are diagnosed with some form of mental illness. It spares no sex, race, age, ethnicity, or income level. And left untreated, mental disorders can devastate our families and communities. Family members and friends are often the first to realize when someone has a problem, but it is hard to know how to help or where to turn. Our mental health “system” can feel like a bewildering and frustrating maze. How can you tell that someone has a mental illness? What are the first and best steps for you to take? Where do you go to find the right care? The Family Guide to Mental Health Care is the first comprehensive print resource for the millions of people who have loved ones suffering from some kind of mental illness. In this book, families can find the answers to their most urgent questions. What medications are helpful and are some as dangerous as I think? Is there a way to navigate privacy laws so I can discuss my adult daughter’s treatment with her doctor? Is my teenager experiencing typical adolescent distress or an illness? From understanding depression, bipolar illness and anxiety to eating and traumatic disorders, schizophrenia, and much more, readers will learn what to do and how to help. Real-life scenarios and authoritative information are written in a compassionate, reader-friendly way, including checklists to bring to a doctor’s appointment so you can ask the right questions. For readers who fear they will never see the light at the end of the tunnel, this book gives hope and a path forward. As one of the nation’s leading voices on quality care in mental health, Dr. Lloyd Sederer has played a singular role in advancing services for those with mental illness. Now, the wealth of his expertise and clear guidance is at your disposal. From the first signs of a problem to sorting through the variety of treatment options, you and your family will be able to walk into a doctor’s office know what to do and what to ask.

The purpose of this book is to provide a children’s mental health resource tailored to the needs of physicians working with children. There are currently no such texts, despite the fact that there are patient care, healthcare systems, and workforce factors that indicate a strong need for such a resource. Approximately 1 in 5 children are diagnosed with a mental illness by the age of 18. Additionally, mental health conditions, including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, are consistently among the most common chronic conditions in pediatric clinical populations. Delays in both diagnosis and treatment increase the morbidity associated with these conditions. These delays expose the child to negative ramifications of his/her illness and can impact rates of poor academic performance, substance use disorders and criminal justice system involvement – potentially impacting long-term life trajectories. Early identification of mental illness and appropriate intervention is critical to the healthy development of youth, though physicians in primary care and pediatrics are seldom trained to detect and treat such illnesses. The importance of recognizing mental illness is reflected in practice guidelines for pediatric primary care providers as well as in how service delivery is being structured, but this does not offer in-depth clinical guidelines. Additionally, integrated care and medical home models include mental health as key components, though yet again physicians are often not trained to work with these models. While clearly indicated clinically, these requirements do not come with significant increases in reimbursement and are added to an already demanding schedule. Increasingly, providers are also expected to use evidence based screening instruments without exposure to this body of literature. Some guidance on using those instruments in context will help them to use those tools more effectively. Finally, primary care providers and even some adult psychiatrists and psychologists are operating in a healthcare system with a severe, nationwide shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists and mental healthcare providers. While a text certainly cannot single-handedly compensate for such a workforce shortage, it could potentially help to mitigate the negative impact on patients by facilitating early identification and treatment in the primary care setting. Additionally, with more effective treatment in pediatric settings, less complex cases may be addressed before specialty care is needed, and the expertise of child and adolescent psychiatrists can be more effectively used for more complex cases. Pediatric Psychiatry in Primary Care is the ultimate resource for clinicians working with children, including pediatricians, family physicians, general psychiatrists, psychologists, early career child psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, school counselors, and all clinical professionals who may encounter children struggling with psychiatric disorders.