Introduction to the Special Section: Advances in psychological prevention and treatment interventions to promote children's mental health.

Abstract

This paper introduces the Special Section on Advances in Psychological Prevention and Treatment Interventions to Promote Children's Mental Health. The three articles in the Special Section provide perspectives on the adaptation, evaluation, and implementation of evidence-based psychological interventions for children in countries in Northern and Eastern Europe, and Latin America. The articles highlight disparate methodologies for the examination of intervention data, including addressing causal inference in the absence of availability of true experiment data (i.e., randomised controlled trial data), randomised trial data from a school-based prevention programme, and predictors of change in an evidence-based treatment programme. Together, the articles highlight the movement of evidence-based practices into routine care settings and emerging strategies for settings in which randomised trial data are not yet available. They demonstrate the contribution of psychological research to the advancement of practices for improving children's mental health.