Author(s): Khaleel S Hussaini
The study assessed the impact of Child and Family Teams (CFT) on functional outcomes, for children enrolled in Arizona’s public behavioral health system. The current study extends the existing evidence on wraparound approach to a public behavioral health setting where randomization may not be feasible and/or ethical. The study was a quasiexperimental non-equivalent post-test only design comprising of 3,950 children with an AXIS V diagnoses of ‘severe impairment’ in Arizona who were eligible and received Medicaid funded services. Multivariable propensity weights were used to estimate the odds of successful functioning among children who voluntarily participated in a CFT compared to those who did not. Children who participated in CFT had better odds of avoiding delinquency (95% CI, 1.06-1.3, p<0.01) and succeeding in school (95% CI, 1.29-1.55, p<0.01) when compared to the children that did not participate in CFT even after adjusting for other covariates.
