Introduction: Children, Adolescents, and Mental Health Services Research: An Overview of Emerging Perspective

As we have discussed, recognition of the specialized needs of children and adolescents has taken place late in many domains. The same could be said with regard to the mental health services research enterprise. Kimberly Hoagwood, a prominent child mental health services researcher and for many years the program officer overseeing the National Institute of Mental Health's services research portfolio in the area of child mental health services research, recently observed that research in this area has lagged behind that for adults by roughly 10 years (Hoagwood, 2005). Indeed, as late as 1999, Burns was calling for the development of a services research agenda for youth with serious emotional disturbances (Burns, 1999).