RTC Research Conference Hits All-time Attendance Record!
The 14th Annual Research Conference-A System of Care for Children's Mental Health: Expanding the Research Base was held at the Hyatt Regency Westshore in Tampa February 25-28. With almost 700 attendees, the conference included nearly 200 presentations that were all geared toward understanding and refining methods for strengthening children's mental health service systems.
"Our goal is to extend the research on effective treatment to real world settings and conditions," stated Robert Friedman, PhD, Director of the Research and Training Center for Children's Mental Health and Chair of the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute's Department of Child and Family Studies at the University of South Florida. "We can reach more families and create stronger partnerships with them by educating the general public and policy makers about the prevalence of mental disorders, and their relationship to impaired functioning."
This year's Distinguished Lecture focus - engaging families in treatment -featured three experts who explored strategies for ensuring that families experience the greatest benefit possible from the services offered.
The first speaker, Barbara Huff, Executive Director of the Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health, gave first-hand testimony as a parent who has spent years engaged in therapy. "Parents have a huge fire to put out," she said, "and that's why we walk through the door in the first place. A parent says, 'Yes, I've got a huge history, but I need to start where I am today, and later, we can look at the history. First, I want to put the fire out quickly.' We need that success, or we won't come back." Huff added, "It would be really nice to be able to hear that as parents, we are doing a good job. In all the years of therapy we were in, no one said that. It would have made all the difference in the world to me."
Jose Szapocznik, a University of Miami researcher known for his work in family therapy, stressed, "If the family is not engaging, the therapists need to change behavior. Families are organizations, and you have to respect the power of this.
Barbara Friesen, Director of Portland State University's Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children's Mental Health, spoke of barriers to services and implications of those barriers. "Barriers are often related to issues not usually addressed by the mental health system," she said. "We need to develop ways to mobilize services for a whole variety of needs, and we've got lots of work to do."
According to mid-session counts conducted by the RTC's Stephanie Kip, topics of particular interest included implementing evidence-based treatments in real world settings; measurement of service use and outcomes; use of administrative data in child welfare research; and lessons learned from the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program sites. Sessions on school based efforts, and engagement of family members and their "natural helpers" were also well attended.
Among other conference highlights, two symposia featured researchers from Latin America presenting in Spanish with simultaneous English translation. In these sessions, participants had the opportunity to learn of the challenges facing researchers in El Salvador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Chile, Mexico, and Ecuador.
One participant commented that "this conference carries an atmosphere of excitement about our work that is rejuvenating."
The 15th Annual Research Conference is scheduled to be held at the Hyatt Regency Westshore on March 3-6, 2002.
The Department of Child and Family Studies (CFS) is a department of the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida. The faculty and staff of CFS are committed to enhancing the development, mental health and well-being of children and families through leadership in integrating research, theory & practice.