OSU Researchers to Assess Youth Mental Health Service Access
Thursday, June 2, 2005
Human development and family science researchers at Oklahoma State University’s Stillwater
campus will begin administering surveys in Tulsa households this month as part of
an endeavor to improve the delivery of children’s mental health services.
Galvanized by the preponderance of juvenile wards of the criminal justice system
who exhibited early signs of antisocial behavior but received no treatment and the
system’s repeat failings of youthful offenders, social scientists are exploring ways
to more effectively address mental health and behavioral issues during early childhood.
According to Department of Human Services’ estimates, as many as two-thirds of children
who need mental health services and assistance in Oklahoma aren’t getting them. OSU’s
study, funded by a $125,000-grant from the Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation, seeks
to determine why.
“It is estimated that as many as one in five children could use or need mental health
services, and around 13 percent of children have serious emotional disturbances,”
said Glade Topham, assistant professor of human development and family science in
OSU’s College of Human Environmental Sciences.
“We know that children who exhibit a variety of problems – oppositional behavior,
acting out, conduct disorders, stealing things, unresponsiveness to authority – who
go untreated will go on to have much greater problems in adolescents and adulthood,”
Topham said. “Many will develop antisocial behaviors and end up in the criminal justice
system.”
“Our motivation is based on the idea that we need to get children into treatment
early to prevent greater problems down the line,” he said.
The project is focused on uncovering barriers to help-seeking. Because service needs
tend to be greatest among underserved populations, information gathering for the study
will be concentrated in disadvantaged areas of Tulsa. The researchers will begin polling
residents in the coming weeks.
“Our interviewers will be going into homes and spending about an hour with parents,”
Topham said. “Most of the discussion will be in reference to the things that might
hinder parents from getting help for their children, from transportation difficulty
and cost of services to social stigmas and the parents’ perceptions of different types
of treatments and their effectiveness.”
The researchers will develop a comprehensive report to share with several groups.
“We’ll be presenting our results to the Zarrow Foundation to help them determine
where they might focus their resources in the future,” Topham said. “A broad range
of service providers in Tulsa – residential care, outpatient facilities, parent education
centers – also should have an interest in these results.
“We also hope and believe policy makers would be interested in better understanding
these issues so they can appropriately direct resources and policy toward making treatment
more accessible to the families that need it the most.”
In addition to Topham, the project involves three other members of OSU’s Human Development
and Family Science department including associate professor and head Kathleen Briggs,
associate professor Charles Hendrix and professor David Fournier, who is assisting
as consultant. The research team also features four graduate students.