Breadcrumb
- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
American Red Cross and FEMA: Helping Children Cope with Disaster
This booklet was created to assist parents and caregivers in helping youth cope with disasters and emergencies. The guide also provides information on preparing family emergency plans and discussing these plans with youth.
Slideshow: 5 Collaborations to Ensure Trauma-Informed Care for Youth and Families
This slideshow highlights five types of professionals that runaway and homeless youth program managers can collaborate with to support youth who have experienced trauma.
Resource: Narrative Writing Exercises for Promoting Health Among Adolescents: Promises and Pitfalls
This resource describes a literature review that explores the potential mental health benefits and concerns of using narrative writing with youth and young adults.
Resource: Apps Help Prevent Teen Pregnancy and Promote Youth Sexual Health
This slideshow highlights six free apps that can help youth avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
Share with Youth: Apps Promote Youth Sexual Health
This slideshow features free apps that can help youth avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. It includes a brief description of each app and a link to where it can be downloaded.
Resource: How Does Talking to Extended Family Influence Teens' Decisions About Sex?
This article highlights a recent study which examined why teens talk with extended family members about sex and what they discuss. The results indicate that almost 60% of teens in the study talked with extended family members about sex, and youth who said they talked exclusively to extended family members about sex were more than twice as likely to have had sex.
Resource: Helping Youth Prevent Suicide Among Their LGBTQ Peers
This article highlights free resources educators and youth service providers can use to implement the Trevor Project’s Lifeguard Workshop, a program encouraging young people to be “lifeguards” for one another by having the knowledge to help in a crisis. Professionals can request a free, in-person workshop or use the resources highlighted in the article to create personalized trainings.
Resource: Integrating Medical and Mental Health Care for Teen Moms
This article describes the mental health challenges teen moms face and highlights a Denver-based program that integrates mental health screening and treatment into their existing medical care.
Director’s Blog: What Caused This to Happen?
Written by NIMH Director Dr. Thomas Insel, this blog post explains the mixture of genetic and environmental factors that underly mental illness and cites recent research that suggests “bad luck” may play a role in the development of psychopathology.
NIMH Strategic Plan Aims to Focus, Accelerate Mental Health Research
NIMH has issued a new Strategic Plan for Research, which updates the strategic objectives of its 2008 plan, with a focus on balancing the need for long-term investments in basic research with urgent mental health needs. The plan includes four strategic priorities which will guide the institute’s research for the next five years:
- Define the mechanisms of complex behaviors
- Chart mental illness trajectories to determine when, where, and how to intervene
- Strive for prevention and cures
- Strengthen the public health impact of NIMH-supported research
The Anatomy of NIMH Funding
In response to calls for transparency, this blog post and corresponding white paper (PDF, 13 pages) written by NIMH director Thomas Insel provide insight into the NIMH budget, including what is funded, who is funded, and how funding decisions are made.
The Teen Brain: Still Under Construction
This brochure describes changes in the brain that occur during the teen years, and the significance of this stage of development.
Boys More Likely to Have Antipsychotics Prescribed, Regardless of Age
New research funded by NIMH analyzed antipsychotic prescription data between 2006-2010. The data show that, in children ages 1-6, boys were more than twice as likely as girls to receive an antipsychotic prescription. This pattern held true for boys and girls ages 7-12, before narrowing for those ages 13-18, and finally becoming more comparable for young men and women ages 19-24.
Share with Youth: Teen Depression
Youth-serving professionals can use this resource, developed for teens, to educate young people about depression. It contains information about the signs and symptoms of depression, places to turn to for help, effective treatments for depression, steps teens can take to feel better, and the impact depression can have on relationships.
Director’s Blog: The Brain’s Critical Balance
Written by NIMH Director Thomas Insel, this blog post highlights one of early projects of the BRAIN Initiative, launched to support scientists as they conduct research on the brain, consciousness, and behavior. This project involves scientists at NIMH and the University of Maryland who are trying to understand how the activity of individual neurons integrates into larger patterns of brain activity
Recent Event: Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder
This Twitter chat featured Dr. Ellen Leibenluft, Chair of the Section on Bipolar Spectrum Disorder and expert on severe irritability in children, who answered questions on disruptive mood dysregulation disorder submitted by Twitter users.
Resource: Child and Adolescent Mental Health
This web portal provides information on mental health conditions and disorders among children and teens, including warning signs, latest news, videos, hotlines, and clinical trials.
Report: Testing Interpretation Bias Training (IBT)
This report describes a new, large-scale study that will test IBT, a computer game designed to diminish the tendency of children with disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) to view ambiguous faces as angry. This study will also test cognitive behavioral therapy in conjunction with IBT in an effort to establish the first non-drug interventions for those with DMDD.
Depression and College Students
This webpage provides answers to college students’ questions about depression. It addresses the types, signs and symptoms, and treatment of depression, as well as co-occurring disorders and where to find help. The webpage also features information on suicide, including the warning signs and what a person should do if they or someone they care about is considering suicide.
Accelerating HPV Vaccine Uptake: Urgency for Action to Prevent Cancer
This report, released by the President’s Cancer Panel, outlines the case for HPV vaccination and the urgency for action. The report presents three goals: to reduce missed opportunities to recommend/administer HPV vaccines; to increase acceptance of the vaccines among parents, caregivers, and youth; and to maximize access to HPV vaccination services
Charge Up! Healthy Meals and Snacks for Teens
This document guides teens in making healthy food choices, offers examples of smart snack and meal ideas, and gives links to other healthy eating resources.
Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General
This Report of the Surgeon General on Mental Health is the product of a collaboration between two federal agencies, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the National Institutes of Health. The report provides an overview of mental health as well as a section targeted at children’s mental health. Sections of this report include information on interventions and service delivery.
Scientists Spot Gene Tied to Severe Autism
In a recent study, researchers claim to have discovered a new genetic cause of autism, singling out a rare gene mutation. The gene, CTNND2, provides instructions for making a protein called delta-catenin, which plays a crucial role in the nervous system. Researchers found that a group of girls with severe autism carried CTNND2 mutations that appeared to reduce the effectiveness of delta-catenin, potentially affecting their neurological development.
Study Finds Genetic Clue to Menopause-Like Condition in Young Women
New research from NIH contributes to the understanding of primary ovarian insufficiency (POI), a disorder that causes a woman’s ovaries to stop working before she is 40 years old, sometimes as early as in her teens. POI can affect fertility and puts women at high-risk the onset of osteoporosis and heart disease.
Targeting Suicide
Written by NIH Director Thomas Insel in light of the recent Germanwings crash, this blog post describes the importance of investing in research related to suicide, the tenth leading cause of death in the United States.