With rapidly rising rates of mental health disorders, changing patterns of occurrence, and increasing levels of morbidity, the need for a better understanding of the developmental origins and influence of mental health on children’s behavioral health outcomes has become critical. This need for better understanding extends to both the growing prevalence of mental health disorders as well as the role and impact of neurodevelopmental pathways in their onset and expression. Addressing these changes in disease patterns and effects on children and families will require a multifaceted approach that goes beyond simply making changes to clinical care or adding personnel to the health services system. New policies, financing, and implementation can put established best practices and numerous research findings from around the country into action. The Maternal and Child Health Life Course Intervention Research Network and the Forum for Children's Well-Being at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine jointly organized a webinar series to explore how mental health disorders develop over the life course, with a special emphasis on prenatal, early, middle, and later childhood development. This series centered on identifying gaps in our knowledge, exploring possible new strategies for using existing data to enhance understanding of the developmental origins of mental disorders, reviewing potential approaches to prevention and optimization, and proposing new ways of framing how to understand, address, and prevent these disorders from a life course development perspective. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the series.

Adolescence is a dynamic time for both brain development and social pressures, making it a critical period to understand mental, emotional, and behavioral health, yet it is often overlooked in terms of policies and service interventions, which makes many young people feel unheard when communicating their own challenges. To explore best practices in providing and supporting adolescent health services and key messaging and communication strategies related to the mental, emotional, and behavioral health of adolescents, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Forum for Children's Well-Being held a workshop on May 5, 2020. The workshop featured a panel of youth representatives who shared their own experiences related to mental, emotional, and behavioral health. This publication summarizes the presentation and discussion of the workshop.

Over the past decade, providers, policy makers, and stakeholders across a range of disciplines have taken various approaches to addressing the rising incidence of mental, emotional, and behavioral (MEB) health concerns in children and adults. With the recent opioid crisis affecting young people and families across race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic level, and thus adding to the national concern, new efforts and interventions have emerged. However, an overarching system is lacking for the collection of data on these efforts and their efficacy. A strong system for evaluating programs and distributing information could create more opportunities to improve efforts and reduce inefficiencies across programs. Additionally, through engagement of an array of stakeholders from all sectors involved with youth and families, more possibilities for solutions can be realized. To bring together some of these relevant stakeholders and to highlight some of these potential solutions, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop in October 2019. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

Increasing numbers of evidence-based interventions have proven effective in preventing and treating behavioral disorders in children. However, the adoption of these interventions in the health care system and other systems that affect the lives of children has been slow. Moreover, with few exceptions, current training in many fields that involve the behavioral health of children falls short of meeting the needs that exist. In general, this training fails to recognize that behavioral health disorders are among the largest challenges in child health and that changing cognitive, affective, and behavioral health outcomes for children will require new and more integrated forms of care at a population level in the United States. To examine the need for workforce development across the range of health care professions working with children and families, as well as to identify innovative training models and levers to enhance training, the Forum on Promoting Children's Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Health held a workshop in November 2016. Workshop panelists and participants discussed the needs for workforce development across the range of health care professions working with children, youth, and families, and identified innovative training models and levers for change to enhance training. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

For fans of Girl in Pieces, All the Bright Places, and Girl, Interrupted comes a haunting and breathtaking YA contemporary debut novel that packs a powerful message: hope can be found in the darkness. "Raw, heartbreaking, and poignant." —New York Times-bestselling author Kathleen Glasgow A Chicago Public Library and Kirkus Best Book of the Year! Seventeen-year-old Ellie had no hope left. Yet the day after she dies by suicide, she finds herself in the midst of an out-of-body experience. She is a spectator, swaying between past and present, retracing the events that unfolded prior to her death. But there are gaps in her memory, fractured pieces Ellie is desperate to re-assemble. There's her mother, a songbird who wanted to break free from her oppressive cage. The boy made of brushstrokes and goofy smiles who brought color into a gray world. Her brooding father, with his sad puppy eyes and clenched fists. And Ellie's determined to find out why a piece of her was left behind. Told in epistolary-like style, Rocky Callen's deeply moving A Breath Too Late sensitively examines the beautiful and terrible moments that make up a life and the possibilities that live in even the darkest of places. Perfect for fans of the critically-acclaimed Speak, I’ll Give You the Sun, and If I Stay. "An exquisitely played love song to life, in all of its hurts, wonders, memories, and loves." –Jeff Zentner, Morris Award winning author of The Serpent King and Goodbye Days "A haunting story, punctuated with brilliant points of hope and light. This is an important story. A necessary story . . . Callen’s writing radiates with passion, honesty and love." —National Book Award finalist and Printz Award–winning author An Na

Behavioral health conditions, which include mental health and substance use disorders, affect approximately 20 percent of Americans. Of those with a substance use disorder, approximately 60 percent also have a mental health disorder. As many as 80 percent of patients with behavioral health conditions seek treatment in emergency rooms and primary care clinics, and between 60 and 70 percent of them are discharged without receiving behavioral health care services. More than two-thirds of primary care providers report that they are unable to connect patients with behavioral health providers because of a shortage of mental health providers and health insurance barriers. Part of the explanation for the lack of access to care lies in a historical legacy of discrimination and stigma that makes people reluctant to seek help and also led to segregated and inhumane services for those facing mental health and substance use disorders. In an effort to understanding the challenges and opportunities of providing essential components of care for people with mental health and substance use disorders in primary care settings, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Forum on Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders convened three webinars held on June 3, July 29, and August 26, 2020. The webinars addressed efforts to define essential components of care for people with mental health and substance use disorders in the primary care setting for depression, alcohol use disorders, and opioid use disorders; opportunities to build the health care workforce and delivery models that incorporate those essential components of care; and financial incentives and payment structures to support the implementation of those care models, including value-based payment strategies and practice-level incentives. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the webinars.