The acces system: a procedure for evaluating children's services at community mental health centers

This paper describes the efforts made by one community mental health center to develop a system of program evaluation for children's treatment services. The approach described has the capability of objectively assessing (1) patterns of utilization of children's services; (2) satisfaction with services as well as the availability, accessibility, and acceptability of services; and (3) the quality of children's mental health services as measured by the attainment of individualized treatment goals. A rationale for the development of this system as well as a description of the modifications and automatization of the procedure are included. By way of illustration, initial results are presented which pertain to 500 goals written for 208 child clients receiving treatment within any one of three of the center's child direct-service programs.