Citation

Bickman L, Heflinger C, Lambert E, Summerfelt W. J. Child Fam. Stud. 1996; 5(2): 137-160.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1996, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF02237936

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Many concerns have been raised about mental health services for children and adolescents. These concerns have included not treating those in need and providing inappropriate services to those who are treated. The continuum of care philosophy purports to remedy these problems by offering a comprehensive and coordinated range of services emphasizing community-based treatment. Services in the continuum include alternatives to trditional restrictive forms of care such as hospitalization. The provision of more appropriate care is hypothesized to improve the clinical outcomes of children treated in a continuum of care. The Fort Bragg Evaluation compared quality, use, outcome, and cost of the continuum of care model to a more traditional, fragmented system of care. This paper presents the effects of a service delivery system on short term psychopathology outcomes.