Strengthening mental health services in Head Start: A challenge for the 1990s.

Abstract

Steps must be taken to strengthen mental health services by building on Head Start's philosophy and by translating innovations in mental health services for older children and adolescents into improved services for young children and their families. Recommendations for strengthening Head Start's mental health program include creating a unified vision that reaffirms a holistic, family-focused, and comprehensive services approach; ensuring that mental health services are responsive to the diversity in families served; increasing coordination of mental health services and linkages with new initiatives; increasing resources and providing assistance in gaining access to new sources of funding; supporting innovation; and integrating the new paradigm for children's mental health services into more traditional approaches to intervention within Head Start.