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Several studies have noted that children in care
have a high risk for mental illness, but few have looked at the
proportion seen by a mental health service who had been in care (not a
given since the two systems have caseloads of unequal size).
An examination of two samples of children seen one year apart at a community mental health service indicated that a significant proportion had also been involved with child welfare (44% of the 119 member "previous-year" sample and 32% of the 160 individuals from the current sample). Presumably, the difference between the two represented new cases that accrued over one year. In fact, when the current sample was followed up one year later the overlap had increased to 39%, a value not appreciably different from the 44% of the previous-year sample. This large and clinically important overlap is not always known to the mental health clinicians; only about 5% of the files showed previous child welfare involvement.  |
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Source: Thompson AH (1994).
Community mental health services' clients with child welfare status. Psychological
Reports 74, 960-962. Click here
for a copy of the paper |
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