ABSTRACT

Behavioral health issues are prevalent among child welfare-involved parents. Despite associations with parenting challenges and maltreatment, parents’ behavioral health conditions often go untreated. In this study, we explore challenges with addressing behavioral health needs of parents involved in the child welfare system. Focus groups with child welfare and behavioral health providers were conducted to explore gaps and opportunities to enhance behavioral health care for child-welfare involved parents. Three themes were identified: parental motivation and buy-in, behavioral health assessments and screenings, and communication and service coordination. Implications for policy and practice include increased training on measurement-based care and effective cross-system collaboration.

摘要

行为健康问题在涉及儿童福利的父母中普遍存在。尽管与育儿挑战和虐待有关，但父母的行为健康状况往往未经治疗。在这项研究中，我们探讨了解决参与儿童福利系统的父母的行为健康需求所面临的挑战。与儿童福利和行为健康提供者进行了焦点小组讨论，以探索为儿童福利相关的父母加强行为健康护理的差距和机会。确定了三个主题：父母的动机和支持、行为健康评估和筛查，以及沟通和服务协调。对政策和实践的影响包括增加基于测量的护理和有效的跨系统协作的培训。