The societal toll and human misery associated with mental health disorders is well established. Nonetheless, only about one in five minors with mental health difficulties access adequate... Show moreThe societal toll and human misery associated with mental health disorders is well established. Nonetheless, only about one in five minors with mental health difficulties access adequate professional support. Care pathways and procedures have to facilitate timely recognition and adequate evaluation of patients’ needs to navigate those who can benefit towards ‘the right service in the right place, at the right time, and delivered by the right person’ - a meaningful Chinese proverb often used by authors from the field of healthcare. To reach this meaningful goal, professionals should be able to ‘look’ at a patient and ‘see’ patients’ needs. This by relying on their sufficient knowledge to recognize a probable mental health need, their skills and experience to enquire further, known methods to reliably assess strengths and weaknesses, and readily available resources to translate what they see into an adequate support or management plan. In this PhD thesis we present a series of studies aimed to fill gaps in empirical knowledge on this topic of recognition, assessment, and referral of youth with mental health problems at the interface of primary care and mental healthcare. The results of the studies could inform clinicians on the status quo considering recognition and referral of minors with mental health problems. Moreover, the findings could serve policy and curriculum makers, thereby improving effective practices in child and adolescent mental healthcare. Show less
This dissertation focuses on the development of children in family foster care and examines which characteristics related to the foster child, the foster family, and the foster placement are... Show moreThis dissertation focuses on the development of children in family foster care and examines which characteristics related to the foster child, the foster family, and the foster placement are associated with foster children’s development. We used meta-analysis and longitudinal research to provide a better insight in foster children’s development. In sum, this dissertation clarifies that foster children vary greatly with respect to their developmental functioning. We found several characteristics related to foster children’s development. Although these characteristics partly explain foster children’s development and thereby provide useful insights, they cannot explain the total variance in foster children’s development. It is both this lack of an accurate model for foster children’s development and the heterogeneity of developmental trajectories that lend significance to screening and monitoring of foster children’s development. We advise foster care agencies to systematically implement screening and monitoring measures in order to capture foster children’s developmental diversity. This enables timely identification of those foster children who experience developmental difficulties and are therefore at risk for negative developmental trajectories and breakdown. Researchers and foster care professionals should establish collaborations in order to improve the validity as well as the feasibility of screening and monitoring children in foster care. Show less
