The Evidence for Home and Community-Based Mental Health Services: Half Full or Half Empty or Create Other Glasses?

Abstract

Two major reform movements have shaped child and adolescent mental health services over the past quarter-century: the Systems of Care movement, and more recently, the movement toward evidence-based practice. Results from several studies indicate that youth served in traditional residential or inpatient care may experience difficulty re-entering their natural environments, or were released into physically and emotionally unsafe homes (Bruns & Burchard, 2000; President's Commission on Mental Health, 1978; Stortz, 2000; Stroul & Friedman, 1986; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999). The cost of hospitalizing youth also became a policy concern (Henggeler et al., 1999b; Kielser, 1993; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999). For example, it is estimated that from the late 1980s through 1990 inpatient treatment consumed nearly half of all expenditures for child and adolescent mental health care although the services were found not to be very effective (Burns, 1991; Burns & Friedman, 1990). More recent analyses indicate that at least 1/3 of all mental health expenditures for youth are associated with inpatient hospitalization (Ringel & Sturm, 2001).

Citation

Pinkard, T.J. and Bickman, L. (2006), "The Evidence for Home and Community-Based Mental Health Services: Half Full or Half Empty or Create Other Glasses?", Fisher, W.H. (Ed.) Research on Community-Based Mental Health Services for Children and Adolescents (Research in Community and Mental Health, Vol. 14), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 139-178. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0192-0812(06)14008-8