Evaluating the effectiveness of infant mental health enhanced case management for dependency populations

Area of Science:

• Child welfare
• Developmental psychology
• Social work

Background:

• Children in foster care often exhibit developmental delays and school readiness challenges.
• Early intervention services are crucial for mitigating the negative impacts of abuse and neglect.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of enhanced infant mental health-oriented case management services.
• To assess the impact of intensive case management on developmental outcomes for children in foster care.

Main Methods:

• A randomized controlled trial involving 144 children receiving services from The Children's Home Society of Florida.
• Comparison of an experimental group receiving enhanced case management with a control group.
• Tracking progress in areas such as parent visits, service referrals, assessment completion, and treatment goal attainment.

Main Results:

• Children in the enhanced case management group showed significantly more parent visits and service referrals.
• Higher rates of completed assessments and services based on those assessments were observed in the experimental group.
• Children receiving intensive case management demonstrated improved problem-solving developmental skills.

Conclusions:

• Enhanced infant mental health case management positively impacts children in foster care and their families.
• The findings support the integration of specialized case management for improving developmental trajectories and service utilization.
• Further research is warranted to explore long-term effects and broader implementation.