This chapter discusses comprehensive school crisis interventions, identifies the characteristics that define a crisis, finds ways to assess for the level of traumatic impact, and determines what interventions can be provided to help with response and recovery. It highlights the PREPaRE Model of crisis prevention and intervention. There are six general categories of crises: acts of war and/or terrorism; violent and/or unexpected deaths; threatened death and/or injury; human-caused disasters; natural disasters; and severe illness or injury. Children are a vulnerable population and in the absence of quality crisis interventions, there can be negative short- and long-term implications on learning, cognitive development, and mental health. Evidence-based interventions focusing on physical and psychological safety may be implemented to prevent a crisis from occurring or mitigate the traumatic impact of a crisis event by building resiliency in students. Crisis risk factors are variables that predict whether a person becomes a psychological trauma victim.

Divorce is a lengthy developmental process and, in the case of children and adolescents, one that can encompass most of their young lives. This chapter explores the experience of divorce from the perspective of the children, reviews the evidence base and empirical support for interventions. It provides examples of three evidence-based intervention programs, namely, Children in Between, Children of Divorce Intervention Program (CODIP), and New Beginnings, appropriate for use with children, adolescents, and their parents. Promoting protective factors and limiting risk factors during childhood and adolescence can prevent many mental, emotional, and behavioral problems and disorders during those years and into adulthood. The Children in Between program is listed on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices. The CODIP and the New Beginnings program are also listed on the SAMHSA National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices.

Children and youth with serious emotional, behavioral, and social difficulties present challenges for teachers, parents, and peers. Youth who are at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) are particularly vulnerable in the areas of peer and adult social relationships. The emphasis on meeting academic standards and outcomes for children and youth in schools has unfortunately pushed the topic of social-emotional development to the proverbial back burner. This chapter emphasizes that social skills might be considered academic enablers because these positive social behaviors predict short-term and long-term academic achievement. Evidence-based practices are employed with the goal of preventing or ameliorating the effects of disruptive behavior disorders (DBD) in children and youth. An important distinction in designing and delivering social skills interventions (SSI) is differentiating between different types of social skills deficits. Social skills deficits may be either acquisition deficits or performance deficits.

Child psychotherapy requires case conceptualization through the lens of developmental psychology in a multimodal approach to assessment, diagnosis, treatment planning, and clinical interventions. This chapter outlines a blueprint for therapists to provide treatment for children by integrating these fundamental principles while collaborating with the other people in the child’s life. The chapter guides the therapist through case conceptualization that integrates the most efficacious treatment interventions into the eight-phase template of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). Adaptive information processing (AIP) theory drives treatment with EMDR throughout the eight phases of that protocol and provides a template for case conceptualization and treatment planning. The use of the EMDR approach to psychotherapy is well documented and approved as evidence-based practice in Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) and California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (CEBC).

This chapter defines neurodevelopmental disorders, and examines the medical, psychosocial, and vocational aspects of two neurodevelopmental disorders that are increasing in the U.S. population: autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It provides populations at risk of being diagnosed with ASD or ADHD, and distinguishes key considerations for outreach, eligibility determination, and rehabilitation assessment and planning. The chapter considers services to be included in the rehabilitation plan to facilitate goal achievement for consumers with ASD or ADHD, and examines evidence-based practices in job development, placement, and retention. Both ASD and ADHD can be accompanied by co-occurring psychiatric disabilities. Counseling and guidance are always individualized to the unique characteristics, rehabilitation needs, and preferences of each rehabilitation consumer. Rehabilitation counselors must also take into consideration the importance of family involvement in the transition and rehabilitation of youths with ASD and ADHD.

This chapter highlights topic areas in which research is needed to more fully understand the nature and needs of people with emerging disabilities, and examines current trends in rehabilitation counseling research and how investigations with people with emerging disabilities are compatible with these trends. It describes types of emerging disabilities for which health care, community living, and vocational experiences should be investigated more thoroughly in future research. The chapter addresses methodological and data analytic strategies that rehabilitation researchers can use to study the complex, multidimensional needs of people with emerging disabilities. Intervention studies that promote evidence-based practices will be increasingly important in future emerging disabilities research. Multivariate data analytic technique that provides opportunities to more effectively model the complexity of the real world in which people with emerging disabilities live is multilevel modeling (MLM), also known as hierarchical linear modeling (HLM).

This chapter entails a review of “system readiness”, and discusses methods for conducting evaluations and research related to capacity building through system change. Moreover, with advocacy research being paramount in kinship care practice, its use in kinship care is addressed, covering the use of advocacy research strategies and methods for translating research findings into kinship care policy and practice. When service systems are ready for change, they are best served by a trained and supported workforce that is able to intervene and support families using culturally appropriate, evidence-based practice models. A probe into how evidence-based practices can become more effective in realm kinship care is offered. Children in kinship care not only need effective and supportive caregivers, but also need effective child welfare policies and programs. System of Care has been one approach used in child welfare to bring about necessary changes to local programming.

This chapter discusses issues associated with specific natural disasters, generalized issues associated with most natural disasters, and evidence-based principles and practices for supporting youth following a natural disaster. La Greca highlighted three phases of recovery following natural disasters and offers evidence-based interventions associated with each phase. These include the postimpact phase, short-term recovery and reconstruction phase, and the long-term recovery phase. The chapter outlines the effects of natural disasters on children and provides an overview of strategies for supporting children and adolescents following traumatic events. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized as an anxiety reaction that emerges after witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event. The chapter summarizes three evidence-based approaches to support children in the aftermath of a potentially traumatic event, such as a natural disaster: trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), and the Mourning Child Grief Support Curriculum (MCGC).

In 2013, 42% of fourth-grade students and 36% of eighth-grade students in the United States (US) performed at the proficient or advanced level on the mathematics National Assessment Educational Progress (NAEP) assessments, indicating that more than half of students at these grades are performing below proficient levels in math. Prevalence rates of math disabilities (MD) are difficult to estimate. More than 2 million school-aged children in the US are identified as having specific learning disability (SLD). There are three primary models for determination of an SLD in the US: IQ-achievement discrepancy, patterns of strengths and weaknesses (PSW), and Responsiveness-to-Intervention (RTI). Children with a math disability or comorbid math/reading disability are also more likely to meet criteria for a variety of internalizing and externalizing disorders such as oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), conduct disorder (CD), generalized anxiety disorder, and depression. Schema-based strategy instruction is an evidence-based procedure to improve achievement in math.