Termination of mental health services for children Article

Breda, CS, Bickman, L. (1997). Termination of mental health services for children . JOURNAL OF CHILD AND FAMILY STUDIES, 6(1), 69-87. 10.1023/A:1025072724075

cited authors

  • Breda, CS; Bickman, L

authors

abstract

  • In this paper, we examine the termination of children's mental health services. Analyses were based on the 901 families in the Fort Bragg Evaluation Project who participated at Wave 1 and Wave 2 six months later. The project compared a full continuum of care provided at a demonstration site with traditional care at two comparison sites. The results showed that in most cases families and providers were partners in decisions to terminate treatment. About half of the clients self-terminated or were terminated solely at the discretion of me provider. Providers tended to play a more dominant role in terminating restrictive services; families played a more central role in terminating outpatient care. Regardless of initial psychopathology, children in single-headed households, whose parents were dissatisfied with services, did not expect their child to cooperate with treatment and did not expect treatment to help their child, were more likely to terminate care than others. While the Demonstration site had significantly fewer terminations, the sites did not differ with regard to the reasons for termination, who participated in termination decisions, or the factors that affected the likelihood to terminate care. Of most interest, mental health outcomes among children who had terminated all care did not vary by reasons for termination or by who participated in the termination decision. © 1997 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

publication date

  • January 1, 1997

published in

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

start page

  • 69

end page

  • 87

volume

  • 6

issue

  • 1