Free Trial Opportunity

POLARIS-YOUTH
Helping children and adolescents improve mental health, build on strengths and grow up to be productive adults

000000495337
THE STORY BEHIND THE PRODUCT

The Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health, from 1997, stated that one in ten children and adolescents suffer from a mental illness severe enough to cause some level of impairment, and that, in any given year, only one in five of these children are properly diagnosed or receive the appropriate care. In response to this disturbing evidence, the Polaris development team conceived of Polaris-Youth. Their goal: Design a system that would improve the outcomes of mentally ill children and adolescents by providing clinical decision support throughout the treatment process.

Development goals also included building a system that compiles the perspectives of all those involved in the treatment process—the adolescent, clinician, and parent/caregiver—affording a comprehensive basis for treatment planning and monitoring.

The resulting system is culturally appropriate and includes psychometrically sound measures. It can be easily integrated into the normal treatment process; respondent and administrative burden is minimal. It provides documentation for individual and program outcomes, and monitors the family or caregiver environment throughout treatment. Polaris-Youth is designed to detect inauthentic/inconsistent responding, and the handling of data is HIPAA compliant.

POLARIS-YOUTH MEASURES

A variety of common behavioral disorders including:
  • Conduct Disorder
  • ADHD
  • Depression
  • Anxiety
Strength Based Domains:
  • Resiliency
  • Quality of the parent-child relationship
  • Community involvement
  • School functioning
The inclusion of strength-based paradigms is based on the premise that despite the abuse or negative life choices through which an adolescent has suffered, an adolescent often has strengths and can be taught skills to help them overcome adversity, teach them to build supportive relationships in the community and resist behaviors that may be related to gang involvement, drug abuse, or teen pregnancy.

Additional benchmarks include:
  • The lifetime history of the adolescent’s psychological problems
  • Current psychological problems
  • Ratings of motivation for treatment
  • Cooperation of child/parent to treatment
  • Critical signs (e.g., suicidal ideation, danger to self or others)
  • Readiness to terminate treatment
  • Engagement and improvement of adolescent in treatment

Learn more about the design and other key features of Polaris-Youth.

Not sure whether you need Polaris-CW or Polaris-Youth? Click here to learn more about the differences.

Print this page.