Faculty Bibliography

Without intervention, childhood behavioral problems, including aggression and noncompliance, are likely to continue over the lifespan and adversely affect a child's functioning across several domains. Based on the early emergence of functional impairment and the established negative trajectory of these difficulties, prevention and early intervention programs are critically important. Interventions for disruptive behavior disorders have primarily focused on parent training. However, given the limited access to evidence-based mental health care in many communities and the significant amount of time children spend in school, researchers and clinicians have explored creative ways to provide interventions in the school setting. Increasing attention has been given to prevention efforts. Discussed below are the results of preliminary studies investigating the effectiveness of teacher training in improving behavior management in the classroom. The teacher training is based on the established efficacy of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) for young children with disruptive behavior disorders and their families. This paper reviews the various teacher-child interaction training models that have been used in different settings (e.g., Head Start, general education) and includes discussion of adaptations for the classroom and for consideration in future study.

Competency to stand trial (CST) assessment of juvenile offenders is a relatively recent phenomenon, as are juvenile mental health courts. Factors associated with youths' ability to participate in legal proceedings are not well understood, regardless of the court venue. Using a sample of 324 juveniles participating in the Los Angeles County Juvenile Mental Health Court (LAJMHC), we sought to explore the relationships of age, mental health diagnosis, and history of mental health treatment to CST status. Results suggest youths under the age of 15 were significantly more likely to have been found incompetent to stand trial (IST) when compared with older youths (p = .007). Youths with a diagnosis of a pervasive developmental disorder or intellectual disability were also more likely to be found IST than those without these diagnoses (p = .02 and p = .0001, respectively). Conversely, participants aged 16 or 17 years and diagnosed with a mood, substance abuse, or psychotic disorder were more likely to be found CST than those without these diagnoses (p < .0001, p = .035, and p = .0064, respectively). Participants with a history of psychotherapy or psychotropic medication were more likely to be found CST than were those without any treatment history (p < .0001). Further research on factors that affect CST status in juveniles who participate in mental health courts may be particularly salient to improve understanding of specific treatment and rehabilitative needs of youthful offenders, and to inform approaches to competency attainment and recidivism prevention services, both within these specialty courts and in juvenile proceedings in general.

This article reviews literature regarding smoking cessation in Schizophrenia population, its harmful effects on health, finances, role of mental health care providers and better available options for treatment as are in general population. This population not only smokes at higher rates, but also has higher nicotine dependence with lower cessation rates than general population, people of schizophrenia have truncated life span due to smoking related diseases and premature mortality compared with the general population. Contrary to traditional reasoning that this population is not motivated or able to tolerate smoking cessation, but there is extensive literature that negates such rationale, even provides better treatment options to address this huge public health burden. Our review will mainly focusing treatment options particularly drug Varenicline, that shows most effective and promising results in patients of schizophrenia for smoking cessation as in general population, moreover different combination therapies, few new interventions, as well as some clinical areas will be discussed those need to be studied further in future