Breadcrumb
- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
Resource: Campaign to Change Direction
This campaign aims to change the culture of mental health in the U.S. by raising awareness about the five signs of emotional suffering and addressing common barriers to understanding these conditions. Developed in partnership with Give an Hour, the campaign website offers public service announcements, social media posts, and posters the public can use to spread the word.
Share with Youth: Advice to Young Adults from Young Adults: Helpful Hints for Policy Change in the Mental Health System
This resource (PDF, 8 pages) can guide youth- and young adult-led organizations that want to make policy changes in the mental health system. Developed bythe Research and Training Center for Pathways to Positive Futures and Portland State University, it contains recommendations and quotes from a series of interviews with young adult leaders from advocacy groups that focus on mental health challenges or living in foster care.
Resource: Tribal Behavioral Health Agenda
This agenda, developed in collaboration with the National Indian Health Board, (PDF, 96 pages) highlights how behavioral health challenges affect Native communities and describes strategies to reduce these problems and improve the behavioral health of American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN). Tribal leaders, tribal council members, tribal administrators, AI/AN health advocates, and federal agency representatives can use this resource to collaborate on actions to address the behavioral health needs of AI/ANs and to chart priorities for funding, programs, and policy decisions.
Resource: Complex Trauma Fact Sheets
This series of fact sheets describes complex trauma and provides recommendations for a variety of audiences on how to support youth. Developed by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network’s Complex Trauma and Developmental Trauma Disorder Work Group, the fact sheets include:
- Complex Trauma: Facts for Directors, Administrators, and Staff in Residential Settings (PDF, 6 pages) — Gives information for staff in Residential Treatment Centers on how to understand behavior through a trauma lens and provides recommendations on trauma-informed residential policies, staff training and self-care, and the developmental and educational needs of youth.
- Complex Trauma: Facts for Treatment Staff in Residential Settings (PDF, 4 pages) — Provides general guidelines for treatment providers on using a holistic, multidisciplinary, multi-level approach to address the needs of youth with complex trauma in Residential Treatment settings.
- Complex Trauma: In Urban African-American Children, Youth, and Families (PDF, 4 pages) — Describes the specific barriers that African Americans face in obtaining needed services and offers ideas for providers on building supportive relationships with African-American children and families who have experienced complex trauma.
- Complex Trauma: In Juvenile Justice System-Involved Youth (PDF, 7 pages) — Describes the path from complex trauma exposure to involvement in the juvenile justice system and presents recommendations for judges and juvenile justice program administrators, parents and family members, and adults who supervise youth.
Share with Youth: Family Education Materials
These materials provide information on treatment options and support services for various mental challenges. Developed in collaboration with the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric Association, these materials cover topics such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, depression, first-episode psychosis, anxiety disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder.
Resource: SAMHSA’s Data Archive
This website features SAMHSA data collections, maps, reports, public use data files, analysis tools, and other information related to data. Users can browse by topic or publication type and request data based on a specific need.
Report: Behavioral Health Barometer, Volume 4
This report presents national data about the prevalence of behavioral health conditions, including the rate of serious mental illness, suicidal thoughts, substance use, and underage drinking. The report also highlights the percentages of individuals who seek treatment for these conditions.
Resource: Learning Center for the National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices
This website provides resources related to evidence-based programs and practices in behavioral health. Professionals can use these resources to develop, implement, and sustain evidenced-based programs to improve behavioral health in local communities.
Share with Youth: College and Your Mental Health
This guide, developed by the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the Jed Foundation, can help new college students and their parents understand the importance of learning and communicating about mental health.
Resource: Pediatric Medical Traumatic Stress Toolkit for Health Care Providers
This toolkit, developed by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, guides medical professionals in effectively assessing and treating medical traumatic stress in children and families. It includes guidebooks on implementing trauma-informed care, case studies and examples, and patient handouts for children and parents with evidence-based tips and activities in English and Spanish.
Resource: Remembering Trauma: Connecting the Dots between Complex Trauma and Misdiagnosis in Youth
This film, developed by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network in partnership with the Center for Child Trauma Assessment, Services, and Interventions, highlights the importance of using a trauma lens when working within child-serving systems and the potentially detrimental impact of excluding a trauma framework. Professionals who work across child-serving settings can use this resource to enhance their understanding of the impact of trauma and how to be trauma-informed in their practice.
Resource: Psychiatric Diagnoses in Youth and Young Adults Video
This video provides an overview of psychiatric diagnoses in youth and young adults, including symptoms of various mental disorders, treatment options, and support services, as well as links to SAMHSA’s related educational materials for caregivers and young adults.
Share with Youth: Never Give Up: A Complex Trauma Film by Youth for Youth
This short film, developed by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network along with other partners, features a diverse cast of seven youth and young adults who describe the trauma they experienced and how they tapped into their resilience and found their way to recovery.
Share with Youth: A Roadmap to Behavioral Health: A Guide to Using Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Services
This guide (PDF, 24 pages) can help people understand how to use health insurance coverage to improve their mental and physical health. It provides an eight step road map for understanding behavioral health, finding and accessing appropriate providers, and staying on the road to recovery.
Resource: Reports and Detailed Tables from the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)
These reports and detailed tables present findings and data based on results of the 2016 NSDUH, an annual survey that provides national and state-level data on mental health and the use of tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs in the United States. Researchers, substance abuse and mental health practitioners, policymakers, and other stakeholders can use this information to better understand the scope and trends of substance use and treatment, and mental health disorders and treatment, across the country.
Resource: Understanding Neurobiology of Psychological Trauma: Tips for Working with Transition-Age Youth
This resource (PDF, 8 pages), developed by Pathways Research and Training Center, introduces service providers to scientifically-informed findings about brain development and trauma specific to young adults, and describes the implications for trauma-informed interventions and trauma-informed engagement of young people in services.
Resource: Mass Violence and Behavioral Health
This bulletin (PDF, 18 pages), developed by SAMHSA’s Disaster Technical Assistance Center, describes how mass violence affects the behavioral health of adult, adolescent, and child survivors or witnesses of a mass violence incident. It illustrates the phases of response experienced by survivors, provides information on immediate and long-term interventions, and addresses the effects of media exposure following a mass violence incident. Public health, behavioral health, and emergency management professionals can use this resource to improve disaster behavioral health preparedness plans.
Share with Youth: Changing the Rules: A Guide for Youth and Young Adults with Mental Health Conditions Who Want to Change Policy
This policy guide, developed by Pathways RTC (Research and Training Center), is written for youth- and young adult-led groups and organizations that want to make changes in policies related to mental health and other human services that affect them and other transition-age youth. The guide is intended for use by youth and young adults working together within a group or organization to make specific change, usually in partnership with other agencies, groups, or organizations.
Resource: Evidence-Based Treatments for Anxiety Disorders in Youth
This distance learning video, presented by the Technical Assistance Network for Children's Behavioral Health, explores the criteria for juvenile anxiety disorders, how they differ from adult anxiety disorders, the evidence-based treatments for juvenile anxiety disorders, and the differential diagnoses. Mental health practitioners, professionals who work with youth, policymakers, and families can use this video to learn how to recognize anxiety disorders in youth, identify the right treatment, and support young people in recovery.
Resource: Evidence-Based Practices Resource Center
This website includes scientifically-based resources that can provide communities, clinicians, policy-makers, and others in the field with the information and tools they need to incorporate evidence-based practices into their communities or clinical settings.
Tips for Survivors of a Disaster or Other Traumatic Event: Coping with Retraumatization
This tip sheet can help survivors of disasters or other traumatic events recognize the signs and symptoms of retraumatization and indicators they may need more help to manage it. It also provides resources and identifies ways survivors can build resilience.
Coping with Grief After Community Violence
This fact sheet provides information on how to cope with grief after an incident of community violence, introduces common signs of grief and anger, and offers tips for helping children deal with grief.
DSM-5 Changes — Implications for Child Serious Emotional Disturbance
This report describes the differences between the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-IV and DSM-5 diagnostic criteria that could affect national estimates of childhood serious emotional disturbance. The report also provides a description of DSM-5 updates that have been made, or are being made, to existing diagnostic instruments and screeners of childhood emotional and behavioral health.
Report: Comparison of Physical Health Conditions among Adolescents Aged 12 to 17 with and without Major Depressive Episode
This report examines the association between major depressive episode (MDE), self-rated overall health, and selected health conditions (including asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, obesity, and diabetes) among adolescents in the U.S. The results show worse overall health ratings and a greater likelihood of asthma, bronchitis, and pneumonia among adolescents with past year MDE, compared with adolescents without past year MDE. These results were similar by age, gender, race/ethnicity, and poverty status.