Monitoring Prevention Mental Health Programs

Supporting California Counties to Meet Statewide Reporting Requirements

by Amy L. Shearer, Patricia A. Ebener, M. Audrey Burnam

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In an effort to improve mental health outcomes for individuals, families, and communities, the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (LACDMH) offers prevention and early intervention programs to residents. To comply with regulations established by California's Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission, LACDMH must report on changes in program participants' risk and protective factors that occur as a result of program engagement. LACDMH asked the RAND Corporation for assistance in developing tools to help generate such measures and reports.

In this document, RAND researchers describe the process they used and the products they created to assist LACDMH. The process included developing a conceptual framework to guide the selection of appropriate measures of program outcomes and their associated risk and protective factors; assessing and selecting existing measures that meet certain criteria; designing and formatting questionnaires for data collection for three target populations; and creating the Data Entry, Scoring, and Report Tool. The researchers also review the strengths and limitations of their approach and suggest next steps.

Table of Contents

  • Chapter One

    Introduction and Background

  • Chapter Two

    Overview of Approach

  • Chapter Three

    Conceptual Framework

  • Chapter Four

    Assessing and Selecting Measures

  • Chapter Five

    Survey Design

  • Chapter Six

    Data Entry, Scoring, and Report Tool

  • Chapter Seven

    Discussion

  • Appendix A

    MHSOAC Reporting Regulations

  • Appendix B

    LACDMH Prevention and Early Intervention Program Matrix

  • Appendix C

    Conceptual Framework

  • Appendix D

    Outcome Indicators, Measures, and Risk and Protective Factors

  • Appendix E

    Youth Program Entry Survey

  • Appendix F

    Youth Follow Up Survey

  • Appendix G

    Adult Program Entry Survey

  • Appendix H

    Adult Follow Up Survey

  • Appendix I

    Parent Program Entry Survey

  • Appendix J

    Parent Follow Up Survey

  • Appendix K

    Illustrations from the Data Entry, Scoring, and Report Tool

This work was sponsored by the California Mental Health Services Authority (CalMHSA) and conducted by RAND Health.

This report is part of the RAND Corporation Tool series. RAND tools may include models, databases, calculators, computer code, GIS mapping tools, practitioner guidelines, web applications, and various toolkits. All RAND tools undergo rigorous peer review to ensure both high data standards and appropriate methodology in keeping with RAND's commitment to quality and objectivity.

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