Identifying EBPs

To assist in identifying and selecting evidence-based practices to incorporate into service systems, several sources have reviewed the research on effective interventions for children and adolescents. All of these reviews contain information on specific interventions that are considered to be evidence-based or promising practices. This section briefly describes these sources and provides links to the information.

• A synthesis of research reviews compiled into a table of evidence-based and promising preventions, with annotated bibliography and links to the abstracts or full reports can be found here.
  
  
• The State Reviews of Research on Evidence-Based Practices page provides links to individual States' reviews of the research on and guidelines for the use of EBPs.
  
  
• Click here for a list of websites that provide information on EBPs for special target populations.

Cost Effectivenss of EBPs

A report from the Washington State Policy Institute summarizes the research on cost benefits of interventions to reduce crime by youth. The report includes analyses of the cost effectiveness of ultisystemic treatment, functional family therapy, and treatment foster care--programs that are freqently used with children and families with children with emotional and behavioral problems.

Researchers from Rand are studying the Cost Effectiveness of Youth Intervention Programs by conducting analyses of a wide range of interventions that reduce violence, and also are examining the societal benefits of these interventions.

In the Psychiatric Services article, "Treatment costs for youths receiving multisystemic therapy or hospitalization after a psychiatric crisis," A.J. Sheidow, et al. (2004) carried out a cost analysis for multisystemic therapy, using data from 115 families receiving Medicaid in a randomized clinical trial that compared multisystemic therapy with usual inpatient services, followed by community aftercare. Costs and clinical outcomes are given over a four-month period (postreferral), and a 12-month follow-up period.

New Activities in the Field

• NRI, in partnership with SAMHSA, developed a Resource Guide for Promoting Evidence-Based Practices in Children's Mental Health. The purpose of this resource guide is to provide families and youth, practitioners, and administrators with information and resources that can lead to continuous quality improvement within an evidence-based culture in children's mental health service systems and organizations.
• NRI is responsible for leading the development of the new population-based toolkit for children and adolescents with disrubtive behavior disorders. This toolkit will emphasize information helpful for selecting and implementing EBPs for this population, and will have information tailored for different sets of user groups (i.e., consumers, families, practitioners, administrators) and will follow the general structure of the six original toolkits for adults.