Culturally Diverse Children and Adolescents

Child assessment and treatment is complicated by numerous factors: developmental variables, how and where symptoms are expressed, and the different ways that parents and teachers may perceive and define problem behavior. The clinician's task is further compounded when clients are culturally diverse children and adolescents dealing with multiple social stressors. This widely used clinical resource and text guides mental health practitioners in conducting culturally competent, effective work with economically disadvantaged youngsters from African American, Asian American, Latino, and Native American backgrounds.

This second edition offers a unique understanding of the clinical challenges involved in diagnosing and treating children and adolescents raised in multiethnic, multiracial, and multicultural environments. Canino and Spurlock clearly depict the importance of going beyond traditional diagnostic and treatment practices when intervening with special population groups. Without question, this book offers a unique value with respect to its topic, format, and clinical utility. It will be a valuable text for general psychiatric residents, child fellows, psychology and social work trainees, and mental health clinicians at large. I look forward to using this book in both my clinical practice and teaching. --Pedro Ruiz, MD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Texas-Houston Health Science CenterCulturally Diverse Children and Adolescents, Second Edition, integrates the developmental, social, and clinical literature on disenfranchised children and their families. Stimulating case vignettes illustrate key concepts, as well as preventive and therapeutic intervention strategies. An easy-to-read summary of key problems in serving diverse populations is provided. --Mary Jane Rotheram, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles - This closely packed valuable book...would also be especially useful as a text in the college classroom and as a training aid for mental health workers of all kinds. --Journal of Child and Adolescent Group Therapy, 7/28/2000ƒƒ Canino and Spurlock offer concrete suggestions on how to elicit relevant history information (including cultural expectations of child development and behavior, the role of the extended family, family values, and protective factors within the family); how to use available diagnostic criteria; and how to intervene, with whom, and with which treatment strategies. --Zero to Three, 7/28/2000ƒƒ Offers a comprehensive and systematic review of relevant and current literature. --Clinical Social Work Journal, 7/28/2000

Ian A. Canino, MD, is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Deputy Director of Child Psychiatry Training, and Director of the Community Child Psychiatry Program at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. He has founded a number of professional associations related to the mental health needs of culturally diverse populations and is actively involved as a lecturer and consultant to national and international organizations. The recipient of both state and federal grants to develop and implement a training program that can address the psychological and educational needs of culturally diverse children and adolescents in large urban areas, he has published a series of articles and chapters on child mental health.Jeanne Spurlock, MD, before her death in 1999, was Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at George Washington University and Howard University. Formerly, she served as Deputy Director and Director of the Office of Minority/National Affairs at the American Psychiatric Association, Visiting Scientist at the National Institute of Mental Health, and Chairperson in the Department of Psychiatry at Meharry Medical College.