Pre-existing parental stress and youth internalizing symptoms predict parent-reported COVID-related stress in military families.

Understanding the extent to which youth and families experienced COVID-related stress requires accounting for prior levels of stress and other associated factors. This is especially important for military families, which experience unique stressors and may be reluctant to seek outside help. In this prospective study, we examined the role of pre-pandemic family factors in predicting parent and youth stress during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moderators of the Link Between Social Preference and Persistent Peer Victimization for Elementary School Children.

Objective: Current antibullying programs can reduce overall rates of victimization but appear to overlook processes that give rise to persistent peer victimization. Needed are studies that delineate the interplay between social contextual and individual difference variables that contribute to persistent peer victimization. We examined the extent to which two individual-difference variables - internalizing symptoms (IS) and anxiety sensitivity (AS) - moderated the link between children's average social preference score across the school year and their status as persistent victims.

A cohort study and matched pair analysis evaluating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to dental care for people with inherited bleeding disorders.

Introduction: Patients with inherited bleeding disorders (IBDs) can experience challenges in accessing dental care. The COVID-19 pandemic saw the cessation of routine dentistry in England. This study aims to highlight whether access to dental care for patients with IBDs was impacted by the pandemic, and whether the severity of their IBD impacts patients experience of dental care.

Lunchroom-Specific Peer Acceptance and Children's Internalizing Symptoms.

Prior research suggests the elementary school lunchroom is an important context for children's social development. Using a sample of 659 fourth-grade students in 10 public schools (50.7% female; 42.

Informal mentoring support as a potential moderator of the relation between adolescent dating violence victimization and substance use.

Research links adolescent dating violence (ADV) victimization to negative developmental outcomes, including involvement in substance use. Informal mentoring is associated with several positive outcomes, including reduced risk of substance use. Addressed in this study is whether support from an informal mentor can function to protect victims of ADV from involvement in substance use.

Perceived barriers, relationship quality, and informal mentors: Adolescents' preference for disclosing about dating violence.

This study examined associations among adolescents' likelihood of disclosure about dating violence, perceptions of barriers to disclosure, and quality of the relationship with various sources of support. Data were gathered from 152 students in a southern high school. Results indicated youth perceived fewer barriers to disclosing to mentors compared with friends and parents, and youth reported highest relationships quality with informal mentors.

Back to the Future: Mentoring as Means and End in Promoting Child Mental Health.

Youth mentoring is a potentially powerful tool for prevention and intervention, but it has garnered little attention from clinical child and adolescent psychologists. For decades, the practice of youth mentoring has out-paced its underlying science, and meta-analytic studies consistently reveal modest outcomes. The field is now at an important crossroads: Continue to endorse traditional, widely used models of mentoring or shift to alternative models that are more in line with the tenets of prevention science.

Web-Based Training for School-Based Mentors of Military-Connected Youth: A Multi-Phase Development Study.

This paper describes a multi-phase effort to develop a web-based training for adults serving as mentors in school-based programs for youth with a parent in the military. In Phase 1, we conducted focus groups with military parents to: gauge their receptivity to this type of supportive intervention, identify program features that would make the option of mentoring for their children more or less appealing, and identify specific training needs for adult volunteers preparing for the role of mentor to youth in this population. In Phase 2, we used an iterative process to develop the training protocol, including cycling through multiple drafts, creating a web-based platform, reviewing and incorporating feedback from various stakeholders, and then pilot testing the training with two groups of mentor volunteers as part of a school-based mentoring program for military-connected students.

Attachment Tendencies, Big 5 Personality Traits, and Self-Efficacy as Predictors of Mentors' Relationships with Aggressive Children.

Youth mentoring is theorized as a relationship-based intervention in which a strong mentor-mentee bond functions as a mediator of positive outcomes. Given evidence for the importance of a positive relationship, the current study investigated whether differences in mentors' self-reported attachment tendencies (avoidance and ambivalence), Big Five personality traits, and self-efficacy predicted match quality after one academic semester. We also tested whether mentors' experience of conflict in the relationship moderated the relation between these characteristics and match quality.

Anxiety Sensitivity and Children's Risk for Both Internalizing Problems and Peer Victimization Experiences.

In this study, we examined the degree to which children's level of anxiety sensitivity (AS) was a precursor to both internalizing problems and peer victimization experiences. Participants were 581 fourth-grade children (M age = 9.31; 51.

Need, access, and the reach of integrated care: A typology of patients.

Introduction: This paper is a report on a study exploring a potential typology of primary care patients referred for integrated behavioral health care (IBHC) services. We considered whether primary care patients could be grouped into meaningful clusters based on perceived need for behavioral health services, barriers to accessing care, and past-year service utilization. We also described the development of a working partnership between our university-based research team and a federally qualified health center (FQHC).

Exploring Change Processes in School-Based Mentoring for Bullied Children.

We examined change processes associated with the school-based, lunchtime mentoring of bullied children. We used data from a one-semester open trial of Lunch Buddy (LB) mentoring (N = 24) to examine changes in bullied children's lunchtime peer relationships. We also tested whether these changes predicted key outcomes (i.

Social Risk and Peer Victimization in Elementary School Children: The Protective Role of Teacher-Student Relationships.

Children not accepted or actively rejected by peers are at greater risk for peer victimization. We examined whether a positive teacher-student relationship can potentially buffer these children from the risk of peer victimization. Participants were 361 elementary school children in the 4th or 5th grade.

Diagnoses, intervention strategies, and rates of functional improvement in integrated behavioral health care patients.

Objective: Compared with more traditional mental health care, integrated behavioral health care (IBHC) offers greater access to services and earlier identification and intervention of behavioral and mental health difficulties. The current study examined demographic, diagnostic, and intervention factors that predict positive changes for IBHC patients.

Method: Participants were 1,150 consecutive patients (mean age = 30.

Does Integrated Behavioral Health Care Reduce Mental Health Disparities for Latinos? Initial Findings.

Integrated behavioral health care (IBHC) is a model of mental health care service delivery that seeks to reduce stigma and service utilization barriers by embedding mental health professionals into the primary care team. This study explored whether IBHC service referrals, utilization, and outcomes were comparable for Latinos and non-Latino White primary care patients. Data for the current study were collected from 793 consecutive patients (63.

Mentoring highly aggressive children: pre-post changes in mentors' attitudes, personality, and attachment tendencies.

This study examined the degree to which mentoring highly aggressive children was associated with changes in mentors' attitudes, personality, and attachment tendencies. Participants were 102 college students who each mentored an aggressive, high-risk child across three academic semesters (spring, fall, spring). We examined pre- to post-mentoring changes in attitudes about mentoring efficacy and future parenting, Big Five personality characteristics, and attachment tendencies.

Deconstructing serendipity: focus, purpose, and authorship in lunch buddy mentoring.

Lunch buddy mentoring is a particular kind of school-based mentoring program: college student mentors meet twice weekly during school lunch with mentees, and a new mentor is provided each semester. The program is designed to benefit elementary school children who are highly aggressive or chronically bullied. Novel to lunch buddy mentoring is a deemphasis on the strength and length of the relationship as mechanisms of change.

School-based mentoring as selective prevention for bullied children: a preliminary test.

This preliminary study tested the benefits of school-based lunchtime mentoring as a form of selective prevention for bullied children. Participants were 36 elementary school children in grades 4 and 5 who had been identified as bullied (based on child and teacher reports). Children in the Lunch Buddy program (n = 12) were paired with a college student mentor who visited twice each week during the spring semester of an academic year.

Examining motivational interviewing from a client agency perspective.

Although empirical investigations strongly support the use of motivational interviewing (MI), there is no theory to clearly explain how or why MI works. The authors propose that MI is efficacious because it mobilizes clients' inherent resources for motivation, learning, creativity, problem solving, and goal-driven activity. Examining MI from a client agency perspective reveals new ways of conceptualizing several critical issues, including MI's fundamental "spirit," the function of resolving ambivalence, the importance of change talk, MI's ability to combine well with other approaches, and the success of brief MI interventions.

Relationship quality and the mentoring of aggressive, high-risk children.

We used data from a randomized clinical trial to examine the degree to which relationship quality predicted outcomes for aggressive children in two different mentoring programs. Data were available for 145 aggressive children in Grades 2 and 3. Children were blocked by school and randomly assigned to PrimeTime (n = 75) or Lunch Buddy (n = 70) programs.

Adverse school context moderates the outcomes of selective interventions for aggressive children.

Drawing on social ecological theory and empirical studies on the role of school context in aggression, the authors argue that school adversity is an important consideration in choosing selective interventions for aggressive children. The moderating role of school adversity on intervention effectiveness is illustrated with data from a randomized clinical trial study investigating 2 selective interventions administered to 86 aggressive 2nd and 3rd graders. The authors expected that PrimeTime, an intervention targeting child competencies, would be more effective in low-adversity schools, whereas Lunch Buddy, an intervention targeting peer ecology, would be more effective in high-adversity schools.

Direct and indirect effects of parenting and children's goals on child aggression.

This study tested a dual-mediation model of the relations among harsh parenting, hostile social information processing, and level of child aggression in a sample of 239 (150 male, 89 female) 2nd- to 4th-grade children. The theoretical model posited that harsh parenting has both direct and indirect effects on child level of aggression, with the indirect effects mediated through children's social goals. The model further posited that the impact of social goals on aggression is mediated through other social cognitive processes (i.

Development and validation of a gender-balanced measure of aggression-relevant social cognition.

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Social-Cognitive Assessment Profile (SCAP), a gender-balanced measure of social information processing (SIP) in a sample of 371 (139 girls, 232 boys) 2nd- to 4th-grade children. The SCAP assesses 4 dimensions of SIP (Inferring Hostile Intent, Constructing Hostile Goals, Generating Aggressive Solutions, and Anticipating Positive Outcomes for Aggression) in the context of peer conflict involving relational and overt provocation. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the 4 latent factors provided a good fit to the data for girls and boys and for African American and non-African American children.

Callous/unemotional traits moderate the relation between ineffective parenting and child externalizing problems: a partial replication and extension.

We replicated and extended Wootton, Frick, Shelton, and Silverthorn's (1997) finding that children's callous/unemotional (C/U) traits moderated the association between poor parenting and children's externalizing problems. C/U traits were indexed (a) as dichotomous scores (D-C/U) above or below a cut score on the original C/U subscale and (b) as continuous scores (C-C/U-R) on the revised C/U subscale. Results did not support a moderating role for D-C/U scores, but significant interactions were found between C-C/U-R scores and poor parenting when predicting teachers and peers ratings of externalizing behavior.