Children and mental health centers : programs, problems, prospects

Children and Mental Health Centers, Programs, Problems, Prospects. By: Raymond M. Glasscote, Michael E. Fishman and Meyer Sonis. Published by American Psychiatric Association and the National Association for Mental Health, Washington, D.C., 1972; 257 pp. $6.00. This book is a result of the growing attempt to increase mental health services to children. As explained in the first section, previous studies of mental health centers include a considerable lack of services for children. Thus the authors' decision to pick eight of those centers demonstrating the best available models of children's mental health services to show what can be available. The beginning section also provides a concise background of the history and status of mental health services for children. The second section and the major portion of the book, consists of a descriptive report of the eight chosen centers each of which were visited by the authors and several of the consultants. The final section is short and attempts to provide a model though a composite of the centers used for this demonstration and also attempts to project some trends and judgements. The appendix includes the orientation and actual questionnaire sent to all community mental health centers in 1970 by the Joint Information Service to help identify and determine the state of the art regarding children's services by community mental health centers. The first section was very succinct, quite readable and very informative. The second section, the main body of the book had many nuggets of valuable information but its style of writing and presentation made it difficult to read easily. Some data was presented but little of it comparable and the material is presented in a very generalized descriptive fashion under a very broad classification, which leads to some redundancy. The final section of the book is brief and attempts to pull the material together but fails to do a thorough job. Some charts here could have helped as well as less of the author's biases. Some very worthwhile factors do come through besides a variety of approaches to the problems of meeting an extensive service need with limited resources by the ingenuous use of manpower and different types of services. In addition, the avoidance of hospitalization is a strong common result of these various operations. One important problem that seems quite prominent is the question of definition of mental health services for children. Some feel that their role is to do everything the community does not do in the area of human services a',d others are trying to define a specific role for their children's services. In view' of their common problem of fiscal needs, the matter of specificity of role sooner or later has to be determined if the community mental health center is to be seen as an essential part of the system of human services rather than a self-projected image as the center or base of all human services. The latter, of course, will not necessarily be accepted by other personal service agencies and interfere with interagency coordination. The book is worthwhile but more needs to be written about this facet of human services to encourage greater development of mental health services for children in view of the great need. However, unless one is dedicated to this area and is willing to plough through this material and attempt to sort it out himself, this volume will not prove that stimulating in the development of these needed services. The authors, however, are to be congratulated on their attempt to fill this informational gap and on their aim of drawing further attention to this problem in a constructive fashion. Robert I. Jaslow, M.D.