Parents' Perspectives on Access to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

This article reports parents' perspectives on access to mental health services for their children enrolled in a state children's health insurance program (CHIP). Little has been published about mental health services utilization in states' CHIP programs. Focus groups with parents yielded many contextual factors, confirming previous reports about the importance of the primary care interface and cultural competence. In addition, the findings pointed to the importance of taking seriously parents' perception of severity of the child's problem, reducing administrative barriers to accessing treatment, promoting education about mental health to the community, and eliciting regular input from parents about system performance.