Coordinated services for children's mental health: a process evaluation.

Abstract

This article reports on a process evaluation of the Texas Children's Mental Health Plan, a statewide initiative to provide interagency coordinated mental health services to severely emotionally disturbed children and their families. Researchers followed the activities of the state management team and three local sites during the first year and a half of the project's implementation. This article delineates the major positive effects of the plan as well as the facilitating factors and barriers to the development of such an effort.