Intervention with Children

Intervening in the lives of children, adolescents, and their families is a challenging and dynamic process. Selecting evidence-based interventions that will help children and adolescents who are at risk for emotional and behavioral problems to confront diversity and promote resiliency is a critical task facing social workers across the child-serving systems. This chapter examines the development of evidence-based practices with children and adolescents at risk of emotional and behavioral problems, summarizes evidence-based practices that are currently being used across child-serving systems, explores the limitations of implementing evidence-based practice interventions, and discusses the implications for social work intervention practice with these children and adolescents. The evidence-based practices reviewed include child and family interventions (cognitive-behavioral therapy, parent management training models, and multidimensional therapeutic foster care) and school-wide, community interventions ( multisystemic therapy, brief strategic family therapy, Families and Schools Together, Strengthening Families Program and Project Achieve). Keywords: evidence-based child and adolescent interventions; social work interventions with children and adolescents; child emotional and behavioral health services; techniques for working with children; adolescents and families; child/adolescent risk and resiliency