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Identifying and Managing Anxiety and Worry In Children and Adolescents
Many children and adolescents struggle with anxiety and worry. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), based upon the National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent Supplement, 31.9% of adolescents aged 13-18 were identified as having an anxiety disorder with 8.3% of those individuals...
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The Children’s Psychiatric Symptom Rating Scale (CPSRS)
The Children’s Psychiatric Symptom Rating Scale (CPSRS) is a tool designed to help investigators capture the judgments of clinicians and use them to improve the quality of patient care. For years Four Winds has used rating scales to capture therapists’ judgments regarding the nature and...
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The NYSPA Report: Spotlight on OnTrackNY – New York’s First-Episode Psychosis Early Intervention Program
OnTrackNY is a coordinated specialty care program for adolescents and young adults who have started experiencing psychotic symptoms. Started in 2013, the program is a joint collaboration of the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH), the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI), the...
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Transformations at MHA Westchester: Children’s Services
In a recent edition of Behavioral Health News, The Mental Health Association of Westchester wrote of sweeping transformations in process throughout our agency, with a specific focus on services for adults. In this edition, we describe the transformations occurring throughout our services for...
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Championing a Hidden Health Crisis: Childhood Sexual Trauma
The contemporary English writer, Julian Barnes once wrote “Memories of childhood were the dreams that stayed with you after you woke.” Sadly so, for many children those memories of childhood are not laced with adjectives such as happy, trusting, innocent, precocious, fresh, sensitive, fanciful,...
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The Behavioral Health Community Today: Change, Challenge and Opportunity
Over the last several years, the community behavioral health landscape has changed. New York State is driving reforms toward achieving the Triple Aim for better care and improved health at lower costs. In doing so, the community-based behavioral health sector has been charged with undergoing...
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The Promise and Peril of Performance Measurement
Few would dispute the assertion that our behavioral healthcare system and the many institutions on which it depends are in a state of transformation, if not upheaval. This transformation is characterized by many overarching themes and trends, most of which aim to enhance the quality of care...
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Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) – Now Approved for OCD
The last few months have seen major advancements of TMS in the treatment of psychiatric illness. In August TMS was approved by the FDA for the treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, a third indication after depression in 2008 and migraine with aura in 2013 (this approval was broadened in...
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Building Partnerships to Transform Autism Services
Since 2003, NEXT for AUTISM has launched an average of 1.5 programs per year, a pace that matched the urgent needs of individuals and families living with autism and our own desire to help grow the field of autism services. As proud as we are of this pace, we could not have achieved it alone. We...
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A Performance-Driven Culture in a Children’s Mental Health Agency
Developing a performance-driven culture in the children’s mental health system is a complex process that includes engaging, assessing, treatment planning, gathering data, measuring outcomes, and evaluating and continually improving care. Although evidence-based practice (EBP) has become a...
