Date of Award

2008

Degree Type

Dissertation

Department

Education and Human Services

First Advisor

Toman, Sarah

Subject Headings

Adolescent psychotherapy -- Residential treatment, African Americans -- Mental health, Adolescents, African American, Culturally sensitive, In-home, Psychotherapy, Treatment modality, Electronic books. local

Abstract

There is a lack of outcome research in regards to the treatment of adolescents, and even less for urban low-income African American adolescents. In the past, the fields of counseling, psychology, and social work have focused on individual counseling approaches and in-patient treatment facilities as methods for dealing with adolescents with drug, alcohol, and mental health issues (as well as other delinquent behaviors). The purpose of this study is to use archival data to answer research hypotheses to gain a better understanding of what variables (more specifically treatment modality) aid in the treatment of urban low-income African American adolescents. The Ohio Mental Health Outcomes Task Force (OTF) developed an initial set of critical consumer outcomes and recommended to Ohio Department of Mental Health (ODMH) a standard, statewide, ongoing approach to measuring outcomes for consumers served by Ohio's public mental health system. The Ohio Mental Health Consumer Outcomes System (Ohio Scales) was created from this process. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to test six hypotheses that used the Ohio Scales data to determine if there is a significant relationship between adolescent "functioning", service satisfaction, and treatment modality (i.e., "In-home", "Mixed", or "No In-home"). The results of this investigation support this researcher's hypotheses and previous research, that a more culturally sensitive in-home treatment would be more beneficial and a preferred modality of treatment over "traditional" treatment for urban low-income African American Adolescents. Agencies that do not have any in-home treatment modalities in their programming may consider the supportive research to discern if it is needed to help their particular adolescents obtain positive outcomes. Any given non-profit agency's life line is its outcomes. Without demonstrating positive outcomes for what services are provided, an agency's existence is limited

Download

Included in

Education Commons

COinS