TRACKING BEHAVIORAL PROGRESS WITHIN A CHILDRENS MENTAL-HEALTH SYSTEM - THE VERMONT-COMMUNITY-ADJUSTMENT-TRACKING-SYSTEM

In recent years, children's mental health agencies have been called on to demonstrate increased accountability for the services they provide . Ar the same time, the advent of managed care approaches to service p rovision for children and their families has placed increased emphasis on the use of outcome measures to monitor client progress as well as track system efficiency. In this article, we begin by discussing the r ole of behavioral adjustment as an outcome variable for children's men tal health. Then, the Vermont Community Adjustment Tracking System (VT -CATS), which includes four behavioral instruments designed to provide intensive, ongoing, and interpretable behavioral assessment of a serv ice system's most challenging children and adolescents, is described. Next, the adjustment indicator checklists that compose VT-CATS are des cribed, including the rationale behind their development, structures, and psychometric properties. Finally, the ability of VT-CATS to addres s agencies' multiple evaluation demands is discussed, including exampl es of behavior tracking of individual clients, evaluation of the impac t df an intervention, and the use of behavioral data to guide service system policy.