Treatments exist that have been empirically demonstrated to reduce anxiety, depression, and numerous psychosocial other emotional disorders in children and adolescents. However, a wide gap exists between clinical research and practice, such that empirically supported treatments (ESTs) are rarely implemented in clinical settings. This gap undermines the positive impact psychotherapy can have in childhood, and may ultimately reduce the value society places on psychosocial treatment for mental health problems. One obstacle contributing to this situation is the difficulty practitioners have in identifying effective treatments and obtaining the material necessary to use them in their practices. Our overall goal is to create an archive or collection of psychotherapy treatment programs for which scientific evidence of effectiveness exists when implemented with school age children and adolescents. The Children's Emotional Disorders Effective Treatment Archive (CEDETA) will consist of complete replication kits of all necessary materials for implementation in practice settings. To ensure that this program archive is used by the practice community for the selection of appropriate treatment programs their successful replication, and evaluation, several additional innovative products will be developed. The goal of the proposed Phase I project is to test the feasibility of this product development plan. More specifically, we will address the following questions: (1) Can a set of criteria be developed that can be reliably applied by experts in the selection of treatment programs to be included in the CEDETA; (2) Can an adequate set of exemplary treatment programs be identified that have empirical support and meet the selection criteria; (3) Can permission be obtained to acquire, upgrade, market, and disseminate treatment manuals and ancillary material from the developer(s) of the selected treatment programs; (4) Can original treatment program material be enhanced to be useable in the practice community and commercially viable; and (5) Can additional resources be specified and their content detailed that will facilitate the (a) selection, (b) evaluation and scientific advancement of psychosocial treatment, programs and (c) the education of mental health practitioners about ESTs? Sociometrics has been a pioneer in bridging the science-to-practice' gap through its innovative archiving and dissemination of effective programs to practitioners and brings a wealth of experience and expertise to this endeavor. The commercial market for these products is substantial with over 412,000 mental health professionals and about 6,900,000 children and adolescents with anxiety disorders and 3,200,000 with depressive disorders (a portion of these have both types of disorders).
