Reports & Briefs

Describes the evidence of effectiveness of several home-visiting program models in reducing child maltreatment. We present the estimated costs of implementing these models and describe the additional information needed to assess whether they are cost-beneficial with respect to reductions child maltreatment and other outcomes.The brief focuses on four program models—Healthy Families America (HFA), Nurse Family Partnership (NFP), Parents as Teachers (PAT), and SafeCare. 

Reviews the most commons types of maternal mental health disorders, how they affect child health and development, available treatments and the role of child health providers in the early detection and linkage to services.

Summarizes facts, policy recommendations, and research around developmental screening and follow-up services for those children who need more detailed evaluation and treatment.

Outlines strategies to enhance pediatric mental health at both the community level and in individual pediatric practices. The report also provides clinical algorithms to guide primary care clinicians through the process of implementing mental health care into a pediatric practice.

Examines the landscape for mental health service delivery to children, including a discussion of the role of federal and state agencies, as well as public and private insurance.  The issue brief reviews information on mental health programs, practices and guidelines, and discusses strategies health plans can utilize to improve early identification and treatment for children in primary care.

State efforts to ensure that Medicaid beneficiaries have access to integrated care, however, are hindered by a fragmented behavioral health system that is administered and regulated by multiple state agencies and levels of government, and by purchasing models that segregate behavioral health services from other Medicaid-covered services.

Examines five promising approaches currently underway in Medicaid to better integrate physical and behavioral health care. They can be arrayed along a continuum that ranges from relatively modest steps to coordinate care between the two systems, to more ambitious efforts to implement a single integrated system of care.

Synthesizes key points from a meeting convened by Grantmakers in Health focused on improving the children’s health care system by better integrating oral and mental health services into primary care. It describes the challenges to an integrated children’s health system and provides examples of how health funders are addressing these problems.

Advances an approach to children’s mental health that applies public health concepts to efforts that support children’s mental health and development. The approach is presented in a conceptual framework comprised of four major elements: values that underlie the entire effort, guiding principles that steer the work, a process that consists of three core public health action steps/functions, and a new model of intervening that provides the range of intervention activities required to implement a comprehensive approach.

Discusses how (1) pediatric primary care clinicians will play an increasingly important role in promoting the social-emotional health of children and providing treatment—or serving as an entry point to specialty treatment—for children and adolescents who have mental health and substance abuse problems and (2) the growth in this role will involve transformational changes in pediatric primary care practice, requiring new knowledge and skills, payment structures, collaborative relationships, office systems, and resources.