The Effects of Socioeconomic Contextual Factors on Racial Differences in CFSR-3 Permanency Outcomes.

We examined the role of state and county socioeconomic contextual characteristics in explaining Black-White child differences in permanency within one year of foster care entry. We estimated race-specific hierarchical linear models consisting of individual-level demographic and case characteristics of children, state and county socioeconomic contextual factors, and CFSR-3 performance-improvement plans. Findings showed that socioeconomic contextual characteristics were significantly associated with permanency for Black and White children in different ways.

State Implementation of Congregate Care Reforms for Children in Foster Care.

Objectives: The Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) allows states to use federal Title IV-E funds to provide time-limited, clinically appropriate use of congregate care, including Qualified Residential Treatment Programs (QRTPs), for youth in foster care. October 1, 2021 marked the deadline for states to begin implementing these FFPSA congregate care reforms. From June to September 2022, we conducted a mixed-methods study to obtain a baseline understanding of implementation barriers, successes, and recommendations to inform congregate care policy and practice.

Racial/ethnic differences of justice-involved youth in substance-related problems and services received.

This study examined differences in substance-related problems and receipt of substance-specific counseling in 7 different racial/ethnic groups of justice-involved youth. Data came from a nationally representative sample of 7,073 youth in residential placement across 36 states representing 5 program types. Descriptive analyses and regression modeling techniques were used to examine the relationship between race/ethnicity, substance problems, and substance services.

Validation of a migraine interview for children and adolescents.

Objective: To date there are no structured interviews to ascertain the diagnostic criteria for headache in children. The objective of this study was to assess the validity of the Diagnostic Interview of Headache Syndromes-Child Version (DIHS-C), which was developed at the National Institute of Mental Health for a community-based family study of headache syndromes and comorbid disorders.

Methods: The DIHS-C is a fully structured diagnostic interview composed of an open-ended clinical history, modules with key symptoms for each of the major headache subtypes, and associated impairment, duration, frequency, course, and treatment.

Measuring anxious responses to predictable and unpredictable threat in children and adolescents.

Research has highlighted the need for new methods to assess emotions in children on multiple levels to gain better insight into the complex processes of emotional development. The startle reflex is a unique translational tool that has been used to study physiological processes during fear and anxiety in rodents and in human participants. However, it has been challenging to implement developmentally appropriate startle experiments in children.

Service utilization for lifetime mental disorders in U.S. adolescents: results of the National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A).

Objective: Mental health policy for youth has been constrained by a paucity of nationally representative data concerning patterns and correlates of mental health service utilization in this segment of the population. The objectives of this investigation were to examine the rates and sociodemographic correlates of lifetime mental health service use by severity, type, and number of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent Supplement.

Method: Face-to-face survey of mental disorders from 2002 to 2004 using a modified version of the fully structured World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview in a nationally representative sample of 6,483 adolescents 13 to 18 years old for whom information on service use was available from an adolescent and a parent report.