Development and preliminary evaluation of a self-guided, internet-based tool for coping with stress and trauma: Life Improvement for Teens (LIFT).

Implementation issues often interfere with delivery of evidence-based interventions for students exposed to trauma. To improve uptake of evidence-based techniques for such students, a partnership of interventionist scientists, research and development experts, and students created a self-paced, confidential, online curriculum. This article describes the program and results of an open trial in 5 schools that serve primarily ethnic minority youth in urban settings.

A Cross-Site Partnership to Examine Implementation and Sustainability of a School-Based Trauma Program.

Objectives: Schools have been identified as an ideal setting for increasing access to mental health services particularly for underserved minority youth. The emerging field of implementation science has begun to systematically investigate strategies for more efficiently integrating evidence-based practices into community settings. Significantly less translational research has focused specifically on the school setting.

Applying a Trauma Informed School Systems Approach: Examples from School Community-Academic Partnerships.

Objectives: Schools can play an important role in addressing the effects of traumatic stress on students by providing prevention, early intervention, and intensive treatment for children exposed to trauma. This article aims to describe key domains for implementing trauma-informed practices in schools.

Design: The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) has identified trauma-informed domains and principles for use across systems of care.

Statewide implementation of an evidence-based trauma intervention in schools.

The goal of the current article is to describe the implementation and outcomes of an innovative statewide dissemination approach of the evidence-based trauma intervention (CBITS). In the context of a 2-year statewide learning collaborative effort, 73 CBITS groups led by 20 clinicians from 5 different school-based mental health provider organizations served a total of 350 racially and ethnically diverse (66.9% Hispanic, 26.

Smartphone Applications for Mental Health.

Many adolescents and adults do not seek treatment for mental health symptoms. Smartphone applications (apps) may assist individuals with mental health concerns in alleviating symptoms or increasing understanding. This study seeks to characterize apps readily available to smartphone users seeking mental health information and/or support.

Integrating Client and Clinician Perspectives on Psychotropic Medication Decisions: Developing a Communication-Centered Epistemic Model of Shared Decision Making for Mental Health Contexts.

Shared decision making (SDM) interventions aim to improve client autonomy, information sharing, and collaborative decision making, yet implementation of these interventions has been variably perceived. Using interviews and focus groups with clients and clinicians from mental health clinics, we explored experiences with and perceptions about decision support strategies aimed to promote SDM around psychotropic medication treatment. Using thematic analysis, we identified themes regarding beliefs about participant involvement, information management, and participants' broader understanding of their epistemic expertise.

A web-based platform to support an evidence-based mental health intervention: lessons from the CBITS web site.

Objective: To explore the role of Web-based platforms in behavioral health, the study examined usage of a Web site for supporting training and implementation of an evidence-based intervention.

Methods: Using data from an online registration survey and Google Analytics, the investigators examined user characteristics and Web site utilization.

Results: Site engagement was substantial across user groups.

Engaging parents in evidence-based treatments in schools: Community perspectives from implementing CBITS.

This study explored parent engagement in an evidence-based treatment, the Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS), which was delivered in a school setting. To examine the successes and challenges in engaging parents in this school-based program, we conducted qualitative interviews by phone to obtain data from clinicians, parents, and other school personnel across eleven schools from 3 different regions of the United States. Almost all of these schools served low-income and ethnically diverse communities.

Language in pediatric epilepsy.

Purpose: This study examined the severity and range of linguistic impairments in young, intermediate, and adolescent youth with epilepsy and how these deficits were associated with illness effects, nonverbal intelligence, psychopathology, and reading.

Methods: Tests of language, intelligence, achievement, and structured psychiatric interviews were administered to 182 epilepsy youth, aged 6.3-8.

Obstacles to mental health care in pediatric epilepsy: insight from parents.

This exploratory study compared the responses of 20 Caucasian and 20 Hispanic mothers of children with epilepsy about possible obstacles to mental health care (MHC) for their children before and after they read a brochure on the neurobehavioral comorbidities of epilepsy. The intervention significantly increased the mothers' knowledge of the behavior and cognitive comorbidities of pediatric epilepsy and their treatment. Baseline differences in the attitude toward MHC and the stigma of epilepsy between Hispanic and Caucasian mothers were no longer apparent after the intervention.

Childhood absence epilepsy: behavioral, cognitive, and linguistic comorbidities.

Purpose: Evidence for a poor psychiatric, social, and vocational adult outcome in childhood absence epilepsy (CAE) suggests long-term unmet mental health, social, and vocational needs. This cross-sectional study examined behavioral/emotional, cognitive, and linguistic comorbidities as well as their correlates in children with CAE.

Methods: Sixty-nine CAE children aged 9.