In general, the proactive implementation of case management services for families at risk (ie, before maltreatment occurs rather than afterward) has garnered a growing evidence base37, 38, 39, 40 and should become a high priority for conversion from its currently exclusive role in treatment to a role in targeted preventive intervention. The reduction of risk for maltreatment outside of primary caregiving environments is best exemplified by manualized bullying prevention curricula, which, despite free access (http://www.stopbullying.gov/) and a large evidence base documenting unequivocal impact, remain underutilized and not familiar enough to practicing child and adolescent psychiatrists.
In addition, more than a decade ago, Zeanah and colleagues41 reported on the naturalistic results of a family court collaboration with an academic division of child psychiatry (Tulane University, New Orleans, LA), in which child psychiatrists with expertise in infancy participated in the disposition planning and support of young children in foster care. The program, which has been continuously subsidized by local government funding to the present time, conducts serial, comprehensive appraisals of health, mental health, and social factors that influence risk for abuse and neglect recidivism in each case. Notably, the clinicians deliver regularly updated intervention recommendations to the court, and these include specifications regarding safety of visitation, the provision of mental health treatment to birth parents whenever necessary, continuous appraisal of the quality of the parent-child relationship, and ultimately comprehensive medical recommendations to the court detailing necessary parameters and supports for safe reunification. The program reduced (by more than half) the occurrence of maltreatment recidivism compared with a matched group of children who did not receive the intervention. A recent attempt to replicate the Tulane approach for young children at extreme high risk resulted in similarly low levels of child maltreatment recidivism.16 The program serves as a prototype for what are currently referred to as two-generation interventions; other successful examples are described by Shonkoff and Fisher,42 and the effectiveness of treatment of parental mental health conditions on the outcomes of children was recently reviewed in an important meta-analysis conducted by Siegenthaler and colleagues.43