Sara L. Buckingham

Engaging youth and families in school mental health services.

In this article, an overview is provided of strategies to engage youth and their families in school mental health (SMH) services throughout the course of treatment. Resources are outlined to help SMH providers determine which strategies are most suitable for youth and their families, based on outcomes desired, barriers to engagement, and stage of treatment. Four case vignettes are presented to describe implementation of these strategies.

The Common Elements of treatment engagement for clinically high‐risk youth and youth with first‐episode psychosis

Without treatment, clinically high‐risk (CHR) youth or youth with first‐episode psychosis (FEP) have increased risk for significant complications from their illness; yet, treatment engagement among these youth is critically low. The purpose of this study was to examine engagement efforts with CHR/FEP youth to stimulate new ideas that might facilitate participation in services for this population.

Acculturation in the discourse of immigrants and receiving community members: Results from a cross-national qualitative study.

This study explores the bidirectional and interactional process of acculturation from the perspectives of immigrants and receiving community members (RCMs). Our aim was to understand the experiences and interactions of different ethno-cultural groups and their impact on the functioning and dynamics of multicultural communities. We conducted a cross-national, cross-cultural study of acculturation processes, using interviews collected across two countries (Italy: urban regions of Torino and Lecce; U.S.: Baltimore/Washington corridor) and three distinct groups of immigrants—Moroccans and Albanians in Italy and Latin Americans in the United States—and RCMs in Italy and the United States. Findings show that acculturation is a complex, situated, and dynamic process, and is generally conceived as an unbalanced and individual process of accommodation, which expects the immigrant alone to adapt to the new context. The boundaries among traditionally explored acculturation strategies were blurred and while integration was the most frequently discussed strategy, it often referenced a “soft” assimilation, limited mostly to public domains. Some differences emerged between ethnic groups and generation of immigration as well as among RCMs who differed by level of contact with immigrants. The need for more flexible models and for a critical perspective on acculturation is discussed.