Trends in child welfare's focus on children's mental health and services from 1980–2004

Abstract

This study examined how one of the oldest and most widely distributed child welfare practice journals addressed children's mental health issues over a 25-year period. The content of 478 articles was coded. Logistic regression findings indicate that mental health issues were discussed less frequently over the first half of the period examined, and then more frequently over the last decade. Residential treatment was discussed less frequently over time, but other community-based alternatives to residential treatment were rarely discussed at any point, so that overall the content related to treatment of mental health issues decreased as discussion of residential treatment decreased. These findings suggest that although the child welfare literature has recently focused more on children's mental health, dissemination of specific concepts from the mental health to the child welfare literature does not naturally occur over time. Efforts targeted at dissemination of effective community-based mental health interventions for foster children may be needed to support this process.