Foundation for Polaris-Youth Development: Strength-Based Domains and Clinical Progress in Relation to Expected Progress

The Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health, commissioned on September 30, 1997, found that 1 in 10 children and adolescents suffer from a mental illness severe enough to cause some level of impairment. The report further discovered that, in any given year, only 1 in 5 of these children are properly diagnosed or receive the appropriate care. In response to this disturbing evidence, the PsyberMetrics’ development team created Polaris-Youth with the ultimate goal of improving the outcomes of mentally ill children and adolescents by acting as a clinical decision support system throughout the treatment process.

Strength Based Domains

Polaris-Youth incorporates scientifically validated strength-based assessment as one of its measurement components. The system includes strength-based scales that have clear behavioral signs and are associated with clinical prognosis:

• 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 and become productive adults. For example, programs that provide strength-based counseling may help adolescents with their willingness to look at problems in more than one way and teach them to build supportive relationships in the community and resist behaviors that may be related to gang involvement, drug abuse, or teen pregnancy (1).