Breadcrumb
- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
Preventing Youth Violence: Opportunities for Action
This report describes the critical problem of youth violence and provides information and action steps that public health and community leaders, young people, families, caregivers, and other adults that work with youth can take to prevent it.
The Economic Burden of Child Maltreatment in the United States and Implications for Prevention
This report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the total lifetime estimated financial costs associated with just one year of confirmed cases of child maltreatment is approximately $124 billion.
Resource: Essentials for Childhood Framework: Steps to Create Safe, Stable, Nurturing Relationships and Environments for All Children
This framework proposes strategies communities can use to promote children and families’ positive development and to prevent child abuse and neglect. It includes four goal areas and suggested steps based on best available evidence to achieve each goal.
Resource: Striving to Reduce Youth Violence Everywhere (STRYVE)
This web app provides information and space for practitioners and teams to develop and edit customized youth violence prevention plans and measure progress.
Resource: A Comprehensive Technical Package for the Prevention of Youth Violence and Associated Risk Behaviors
This technical package (PDF, 64 pages) highlights six youth violence prevention strategies that represent the best available evidence on preventing youth violence and its consequences. It also articulates a select set of strategies and approaches to achieve the vision of CDC’s national initiative, Striving To Reduce Youth Violence Everywhere. Communities and states can use this resource to guide and inform decision-making related to youth violence prevention efforts.
Resource: Preventing Sexual Violence
This webpage highlights federal efforts to prevent sexual violence (SV) on college campuses, information on SV prevention strategies, and CDC’s five-component framework for preventing SV. Higher education professionals and SV practitioners can use this information to plan and implement prevention strategies on college and university campuses.
Resource: Dating Matters Interactive Guide on Informing Policy
This update to CDC’s Dating Matters online training helps professionals working in the injury and violence prevention field learn about evaluating teen dating violence policies, how they impact the problem, and how to use findings to inform and strengthen public health efforts.
Resource: Preventing Intimate Partner Violence Across the Lifespan: A Technical Package of Programs, Policies, and Practices
This technical package (PDF, 64 pages) highlights six strategies that represent the best-available evidence to prevent intimate partner violence and its consequences across the lifespan. Communities and states can use this resource to guide and inform decisions about programs, policies, and practices related to intimate partner violence prevention.
Preventing Teen Dating Violence and Youth Violence Program
Different types of violence are connected and often share the same root causes. CDC’s Preventing Teen Dating and Youth Violence by Addressing Shared Risk and Protective Factors program funds 5 local health departments to engage in primary prevention activities to prevent teen dating violence and youth violence.
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: 5 Resources to Support and Empower Teen Parent Slideshow
This slideshow highlights five campaigns and organizations that focus on the strengths and needs of young parents and provides links to additional resources on supporting parenting teens.
Resource: Family-Based Approaches to Preventing Teen Dating Violence Research
This article analyzes research describing and evaluating two family-based approaches to preventing teen dating violence, Families for Safe Dates and Moms and Teens for Safe Dates.
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: 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.
Resource: 1-2-3 Care: A Trauma-Sensitive Toolkit for Caregivers of Children
As described in this NCFY article, this toolkit teaches young parents how to interact with children who have had traumatic experiences and addresses important aspects of child development and parenting, such as attachment, teaching emotional regulation, and repairing mistakes.
Resource: Youth-Friendly Manual Shows New Fathers the Ropes
This NCFY article highlights a manual (PDF, 28 pages) that uses driving and car analogies and youth-friendly language to teach teen dads and expectant dads about topics such as establishing paternity, what to expect when the baby comes home, caring for the baby, and co-parenting.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.