MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES FOR LATINO CHILDREN

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DESCRIPTION (Applicant's abstract): The proposed project will provide broad training in mental health services research, with a focus on delivery of culturally effective services to Latino children and families. Substantial literature documents that Latino adults underutilize mental health services despite a need for services that is as great or greater than that of Caucasians. However, we have little information about whether or not the delivery of mental health services to Latino children parallels this pattern. Further, Latinos appear to be most likely to underutilize outpatient mental health services as opposed to other types of services, such as inpatient mental health. Little is known about barriers to access to outpatient services and the client and therapist factors that contribute to treatment attendance and outcome in an outpatient selling. The proposed research has the following aims: Aim 1: To closely examine barriers to access to services for Latino children with mental health problems. This will be accomplished by interviewing a subsample of Latino families who have children with clinically significant levels of psychological symptomotology and who have or have not sought mental health services, in order to identify barriers to service utilization. Aim 2: Given that specialty outpatient mental health services appear to be the service most underutilized by Latino adults, a pilot study will be conducted to closely examine variables that affect treatment attendance and outcomes for children who seek specialty outpatient mental health services. This will be accomplished through collaboration with Children's Outpatient Psychiatry, a community mental health center that serves a large Latino population.