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Helping Child Welfare Workers Support Families with Substance Use, Mental, and Co-Occurring Disorders is a set of training modules from the National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare. The modules are intended to provide learning opportunities and baseline knowledge on substance abuse and mental health problems and interventions; motivate and facilitate cross-systems work; and incorporate cultural awareness and facilitate cultural competency in child welfare practice.

One in Five Preschool Children in the U.S. Demonstrates Mental Health Issues When Entering Kindergarten was an article in Science Daily that highlights two reports: "Prevalence of DSM-IV Disorder in a Representative, Healthy Birth Cohort at School Entry" and "Minding the Transition to School." Social competence and behavior problems that are evident at kindergarten and first grade are known to be strong predictors of a child's academic and social functioning. However, findings reported in the July issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry suggest that psychosocial risk factors can be identified even earlier and can be observed during the transition from preschool to formal schooling.

Some Medicaid Doctors Rely Heavily on Potent Drugs was an article in The Texas Tribune. The article highlights increasing trends of antipsychotic prescriptions to Texas Medicaid patients and how several physicians are profiting from the increase in prescriptions. Although psychotropic drugs only represent 2 percent of the 30 million Medicaid prescriptions filled every year, 70 percent of Medicaid patients are under age 19. These types of medicines have serious side effects in kids and therefore, prescriptions should be heavily monitored.

Texas Suicide Prevention Symposium Presentations are now accessible online. Presentations include various topics from suicide prevention training, substance use and mental health on college campuses, to at-risk training for high school educators.

New SAMHSA Initiative Heads to Region VI in Dallas, TX In support of theSubstance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)'s efforts to mobilize and coordinate behavioral action in partnership with key leadership in States and communities, SAMHSA is establishing a Regional Office in Region VI inDallas, Texas beginning in May 2010 in partnership with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health. Find out more here.

Active and Healthy Schools Get Kids Moving: MU researchers implement program to increase student's activity was an article released by U.S. News and World Reports. A Missouri elementary school recently adopted the Active and Healthy Schools Program, a program aimed to help increase kids' activity levels, improve their attention span and reduce discipline problems. As a part of the program, students participate in 3-5 minute activity breaks throughout the day, including games such as jumping, walking or climbing stairs, and may occur inside or outside of the classroom. After breaks, teachers resume schoolwork and students' attention levels are restored.

Attitudes Toward Mental Illness: 35 States, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, 2007was recently released by the Center for Disease Control.The report provides in-depth look at attitudes surrounding mental illness in 35 states, including Texas.CDC analyzed data using the 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), which included two questions on attitudes toward mental illness. Most adults (88.6%) agreed with a statement that treatment can help persons with mental illness lead normal lives, but fewer (57.3%) agreed with a statement that people are generally caring and sympathetic to persons with mental illness.

Department of Family and Protective Services Updates Online Handbooks. Handbook and Operating Policy revisions for June 1, 2010 have been published by DFPS. Handbooks include: Child Protective Services Handbook, APS MH&MR Investigations Handbook, Statewide Intake Policy and Procedures Handbook.

Far From Home was an article published by The Texas Tribune that discusses the life of 16-year-old Richard DeMaar. Richard was one of roughly 900 out-of-state kids sent to a Texas residential treatment center in the last five years,part of a national compact that allows states that do not have adequate psychiatric or mental health services to send kids to states that do. The practice is designed to help troubled kids get the level of care they need, regardless of where they call home. The practice has increasingly come under fire from children's health advocates, who say it takes kids away from their families and their communities --two things they need to make a full-fledged recovery.

Helping Child Welfare Workers Support Families with Substance Use, Mental, and Co-occurring Disorders.SAMHSA's NCSACW is proud to announce the launch of the Helping Child Welfare Workers Support Families with Substance Use, Mental, and Co-Occurring Disorders Training Packagetoolkit. Developed for child welfare professionals, it is intended to provide learning opportunities and baseline knowledge on substance abuse and mental health problems and interventions; motivate and facilitate cross-systems work; and incorporate cultural awareness and facilitate cultural competency in child welfare practice. The toolkit covers six modules and provides a range of training materials that were developed to be adapted to meet the needs of child welfare trainers for in-person workshops or training sessions.

Juvenile Justice, Mental Health and Youth of Color: A Framework for Action in Texas is a report recently published by Southwest Key Programsand the Inter-American Institute for Youth Justice at the University of Texas at Austin. Funded by the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, the report describes findings from a symposium with national and local experts, as well as stakeholder focus groups with youth, parents and providers. The study confirmed disparities in access, quality of treatment and aftercare for minority youth in the Texas juvenile justice system and provided a set of policy recommendations to address these issues.

Substance-Exposed Infants: State Responses to the Problem assesses state policy from the broadest perspective: prevention, intervention, identification, and treatment of prenatal substance exposure, including immediate and ongoing services for the infant, the mother, and the family. In the study , NCSACW reviews states' policies regarding: pre-pregnancy prevention efforts; screening and assessment in the prenatal period; testing at birth and notification of child protective services (CPS) in cases in which infants are identified as substance-affected; the provision of services to SEI and their parents after a CPS referral is made or other agencies become involved; and the processing of SEI-related referrals to developmental disabilities agencies.

Child and Family Mental Health: Research and MessagingTheFrameWorks Institute has created a web page featuring resources developed from a multi-year study of public perceptions about child and family mental health. The research is intended to inform effective framing strategy related to mental health by gaining a better grasp of the gap between frames used by the media, expert knowledge and public understanding. Lots of good stuff here!

Positive Youth Justice: Framing Justice Interventions Using the Concepts of Positive Youth Development is a new report released by theCoalition for Juvenile Justice. The report promotes a framework rooted in Positive Youth Development (PYD), a "strength-based, resilience-oriented perspective on adolescence." The report provides ideas of how to use PYD to design interventions and create outcome measures for youth justice agencies.