Externalising Behaviour in Children: An Integrative Model Between Health and Education

Abstract Background: Externalising behaviours are the most common mental health disorder of childhood and adolescence. They are defined as attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder (CD). CD is associated with high societal and economic burden. Yudi Gunyi School caters for students aged 10-16 years with problematic externalising behaviour. A multidisciplinary health assessment has been developed. This evaluation aimed to see if this model of care improved the outcomes for children with externalising behaviour.Methods: A retrospective evaluation of all students attending the health assessment between 26 July 2016 and 14 May 2019 using de-identified data was conducted. Descriptive statistics (proportion, mean, SD, and range) were used. A student’s t-test was used to assess change in SDQ scores.Results: Prior to the assessment 22.8% had a paediatrician but 33.3% were not engaged with the paediatrician. Similarly, mental health services were involved in 27.8% but 18.2% were not engaged. Child protection services had previous involvement with 43% and current involvement with 32.9%.Attendance was high (failure to attend 7.6%; cancellation 8.9%). New diagnoses of ADHD (3.8%), autism (1.3%), CD (1.3%) and ODD (1.3%) were made. Other issues identified included learning difficulties (12.7%), medical diagnoses (10.1%), emotional concerns (16.5%), domestic violence (12.7%), OOHC (7.6%), trauma background (27.8%), the death/loss of a close relative/friend (8.9%), parental separation (31.6%) and substance use (19%). SDQ teacher reports showed a statistically significant decrease in total difficulties scores (M = 6.2, SD = 6.165, p < 0.05, eta squared = 1.013 (large effect)) and all subsets including behavioural/conduct difficulties (M = 1.8, SD = 2.4, p <0.05, eta squared = 0.741 (medium effect)), hyperactivity and concentration difficulties (M = 2.8, SD = 2.4, p <0.05, eta squared 1.15 (large effect)) and impact scores (M = 1.636, SD = 1.8, P <0.05, eta squared = 0.909 (large effect)).There were no significant differences in the parent and self-reported SDQs. Conclusions: The multidisciplinary model between health and education offered mechanisms to reduce barriers to care for children experiencing externalising behaviours.

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Poor Quality of Mental Health Assessment Reports in UK Family Courts: A ‘call to Action’

European Psychiatry ◽

10.1016/j.eurpsy.2016.01.1674 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 33 (S1) ◽

pp. S460-S460

Author(s):

R. Kurz

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Social Services ◽

Mental Health Professionals ◽

Child Protection ◽

Ad Hoc ◽

Health Assessment ◽

Poor Quality ◽

Family Court ◽

Family Courts ◽

Assessment Reports

IntroductionProf. Jane Ireland found that 65% of assessment reports sampled from UK family courts were ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’.ObjectiveThe presentation raises international awareness of the problem and explains the contextual factors that contribute to malpractice.AimsThe paper highlights typical deficiencies in family court assessments and forensic processes in order to reduce the risk of unsafe custody rulings.MethodDue to the paucity of published academic literature ‘ad hoc’ Internet searches were utilised to collect source material and identify advocates. A range of conferences, seminars and continued professional development (CPD) events revealed the background for some of the persistent problems.ResultsThe suppression of the trauma-centric approach to mental health issues and its re-emergence are central to understanding the trajectory and how to improve professional practice.Organised Ritualised Crime Abuse Networks (ORCANs) seem to be at work infiltrating institutions that are supposed to uphold law and order.Inadequate psychometric instruments appear to beguile some mental health professionals into wrong diagnosis and testimony.ConclusionThe standard of UK family court assessments must improve. Scrapping ‘forced adoption’ legislation that drives the ‘child snatching’ culture in UK social services department would benefit society including citizens from abroad whose governments vocally criticise the removal of their children through clandestine UK ‘child protection’ procedures.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.

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Demographic and Mental Health Assessments in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study: Updates and Longitudinal Trajectories

10.1101/2021.07.05.21260023 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Deanna M Barch ◽

Matthew D Albaugh ◽

Arielle Baskin-Sommers ◽

Brittany E Bryant ◽

Duncan B Clark ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Cognitive Development ◽

Internalizing Symptoms ◽

Family Income ◽

Developmental Trajectories ◽

Health Assessment ◽

Childhood And Adolescence ◽

Age Related ◽

Mental Health History ◽

Family Mental Health

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study of 11,880 youth incorporates a comprehensive range of measures assessing predictors and outcomes related to mental health across childhood and adolescence in participating youth, as well as information about family mental health history. We have previously described the logic and content of the mental health assessment battery at Baseline and Year 1. Here, we describe changes to that battery and issues and clarifications that have emerged, as well as additions to the mental health battery at the 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-year follow-ups. We capitalize on the recent release of longitudinal data for caregiver and youth report of mental health data to evaluate trajectories of dimensions of psychopathology as a function of demographic factors. For both caregiver and self-reported mental health symptoms, males showed age-related decreases in internalizing and externalizing symptoms, while females showed an increase in internalizing symptoms with age. Multiple indicators of socioeconomic status (caregiver education, family income, financial adversity, neighborhood poverty) accounted for unique variance in both caregiver and youth-reported externalizing and internalizing symptoms. These data highlight the importance of examining developmental trajectories of mental health as a function of key factors such as sex and socioeconomic environment.

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Review of Mental Health Assessment and Therapeutic Intervention With Older Adults.

Contemporary Psychology ◽

10.1037/023892 ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 30 (6) ◽

pp. 504-504

Author(s):

No authorship indicated

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Older Adults ◽

Therapeutic Intervention ◽

Health Assessment ◽

Mental Health Assessment

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Mental Capacity Act 2005: Deprivation of Liberty Form No. 6: Mental Health Assessment

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e593052010-001 ◽

2013 ◽

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Health Assessment ◽

Mental Capacity ◽

Mental Health Assessment ◽

Mental Capacity Act 2005 ◽

Mental Capacity Act

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CAMINO: Integrating context in the mental health assessment of immigrant Latinos.

Professional Psychology Research and Practice ◽

10.1037/pro0000170 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 48 (6) ◽

pp. 453-460 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Michelle A. Silva ◽

Manuel Paris ◽

Luis M. Añez

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Health Assessment ◽

Mental Health Assessment

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Child and Youth Mental Health Assessment

PsycTESTS Dataset ◽

10.1037/t74610-000 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Shannon L. Stewart ◽

Chloe A. Hamza

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Health Assessment ◽

Youth Mental Health ◽

Mental Health Assessment

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Analysing Dynamic Change in Children’s Socio-Emotional Development using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in a large UK Longitudinal Study

10.31234/osf.io/wz9xc ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Lydia Gabriela Speyer ◽

Anastasia Ushakova ◽

Hildigunnur Anna Hall ◽

Michelle Luciano ◽

Bonnie Auyeung ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Conduct Problems ◽

Dynamic Change ◽

Emotional Problems ◽

Strengths And Difficulties Questionnaire ◽

Mental Health Issue ◽

Childhood And Adolescence ◽

Peer Problems ◽

Mental Health Difficulties ◽

Strengths And Difficulties

Background: Most mental health difficulties have their onset during childhood and adolescence. Many children who suffer from one mental health issue also suffer from at least one comorbid disorder. Autoregressive latent trajectory models with structured residuals (ALT-SR) and multilevel graphical vector autoregression (GVAR) are recent complementary approaches that can help provide new insights into the reciprocal relationships between multiple mental health domains and advance the understanding of the development of comorbidities.Methods: This study uses ALT-SR and multilevel GVAR models to analyse the temporal, contemporaneous and between-person relationships between emotional problems, peer problems, conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention and prosociality as measured by the parent-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in 17,478 children taking part in the UK Millennium Cohort Study at ages 3, 5, 7, 11, 14 and 17 years. Results: Results from both the ALT-SR model and the multilevel GVAR model highlight that children’s strengths and difficulties in different domains of psychosocial functioning dynamically influence each other over- and within-time. The ALT-SR model highlighted that hyperactivity/inattention plays a central role in affecting other domains over developmental time while the GVAR model highlighted comparably strong bidirectional relationships between conduct problems and prosociality as well as between emotional problems and peer problems. Both models suggest that most domains are also related to each other over shorter timescales.Conclusion: This study highlights that mental health difficulties influence one another dynamically over time. As illustrated in the domains of the SDQ, these dynamic changes can be modelled using the complementary techniques of ALT-SR or GVAR models, each offering different insights into the nature of comorbidity.

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Mental Health and Social Difficulties of Late-Diagnosed Children with Autism, Across Childhood and Adolescence

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.3721153 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

William Mandy ◽

Emily Midouhas ◽

Mariko Hosozawa ◽

Noriko Cable ◽

Amanda Sacker ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Children With Autism ◽

Childhood And Adolescence ◽

Social Difficulties

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Evidence-Based Practice in School Mental Health

10.1093/oso/9780190886578.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Mental Disorders ◽

Mental Health Problems ◽

Common Mental Disorders ◽

Adolescent Psychopathology ◽

Real Life ◽

Childhood And Adolescence ◽

Dsm 5 ◽

School Based ◽

K 12

Schools have become the default mental health providers for children and adolescents, but they are often poorly equipped to meet the mental health needs of their students. The introduction tackles how to make students eligible for school-based services using the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Using the new DSM-5 as an organizing principle, this book then addresses the 12 most common mental disorders of childhood and adolescence, ages 3–18. While there are many books that address child and adolescent psychopathology, this book focuses on how to help students with mental disorders in pre-K–12 schools. Each chapter addresses the prevalence of a disorder in school-age populations, appropriate diagnostic criteria, differential diagnosis, comorbid disorders, rapid assessment instruments available, school-based interventions using multitiered systems of support, and easy-to-follow suggestions for progress monitoring. Unique to this book, each chapter has detailed suggestions for how school-based clinicians can collaborate with teachers, parents, and community providers to address the needs of youth with mental health problems so that school, home, and community work together. Each chapter ends with a list of extensive web resources and a real-life case example drawn from the clinical practice of the authors. The final chapter addresses two newly proposed diagnoses for self-harm in the DSM-5 and brings a cautious and sensible approach to assessing and helping students who may be at risk for serious self-injury or suicide.

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