Michael C. Roberts

The specialty of clinical child and adolescent psychology has a history that dates back to the turn of the century when the first psychological clinic for children was reportedly established. As it is currently applied, this broad and wide-ranging specialty took organizational shape from the 1960s through the 1990s, and today child and adolescent psychology shares many characteristics and plays a collaborative role other specialties within professional psychology. These include clinical psychology, cognitive and behavioral psychology, school psychology, and clinical health psychology. In this volume, Dr. Finch and his co-authors provide a comprehensive demonstration of the competencies involved in this specialty, extending far beyond the scope of the age of its identified patient population. Offering an evidence-based best practices model of intervention informed by an integration of multiple professional competencies from a range of other specialty areas, this book is an invaluable resource for all those interested in pursuing the clinical child and adolescent specialty practice. Series in Specialty Competencies in Professional Psychology Series Editors Arthur M. Nezu and Christine Maguth Nezu As the field of psychology continues to grow and new specialty areas emerge and achieve recognition, it has become increasingly important to define the standards of professional specialty practice. Developed and conceived in response to this need for practical guidelines, this series presents methods, strategies, and techniques for conducting day-to-day practice in any given psychology specialty. The topical volumes address best practices across the functional and foundational competencies that characterize the various psychology specialties, including clinical psychology, cognitive and behavioral psychology, school psychology, geropsychology, forensic psychology, clinical neuropsychology, couples and family psychology, and more. Functional competencies include common practice activities like assessment and intervention, while foundational competencies represent core knowledge areas such as ethical and legal issues, cultural diversity, and professional identification. In addition to describing these competencies, each volume provides a definition, description, and development timeline of a particular specialty, including its essential and characteristic pattern of activities, as well as its distinctive and unique features. Written by recognized experts in their respective fields, volumes are comprehensive, up-to-date, and accessible. These volumes offer invaluable guidance to not only practicing mental health professionals, but those training for specialty practice as well.

The introduction of the concept of managed care into mental and physical health care appears to be a juggernaut of unparalleled impact. The two extremes of thought about this impact are (I) that managed care is a villainous foe to be resisted in order to bring back the earlier halcyon years of independence in practice decisions with greater reimbursement for psychologists' services or (2) that managed care is a laudatory attempt to restrain health care costs that are out of control and spiraling upward by rooting out mismanagement and reversing financial incentives to provide unnecessary care. The former view calls managed health care such names as "mangled care" and distributes bumper stickers stating "Just Say No to HMOs. " The latter view points to the slowdown of increases in health care expenditures and the enhancement of health care affordability and appropriateness for greater numbers of persons resulting from managed care cost-containment strategies and service review procedures. Mental or behavioral health care has been as strongly impacted as medical care under managed care. Where managed care has forced practitioners' attention to validated procedures and to examining previous wasteful practices, we ap­ plaud the movement. Where managed care has had adverse impact, we think there needs to be greater public, legal, and regulatory attention to its excesses and abuses.