Factors associated with family reunification following a short-term stay in a shelter for runaway and troubled youth were examined. Children who were not reunified with their caretakers following their stay reported more family problems, appeared to be at higher risk of suicide, and stayed longer in the shelter. Implications for delivery of shelter service programs are discussed.

Parents of young children with severe emotional and behavior problems have few services from which to choose if their child is expelled from preschool for aggressive and disruptive behavior. Two case studies provide an overview of a multicomponent, intensive, day-treatment program for children with moderate to severe behavior disorders. Proximal and distal program goals are to eliminate presenting problem behaviors and increase social competencies and to reintegrate children back to their school, preschool, or daycare, respectively. The cases presented in this study provide preliminary evidence that day treatment can be a viable option for young children with disruptive behavior disorders.

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This study used a multiple baseline with reversal design to assess whether visual performance feedback (VPF) influenced targeted and nontargeted staffs' use of behavior-specific praise (BSP) in a day-treatment program. This study expands on the typical VPF audience and assesses whether VPF can be effective with noncertified staff in a day-treatment program for young children with behavior disorders, an environment in which it is difficult to maintain high rates of BSP. In previous school-based studies, VPF has been collected by researchers and provided to targeted teaching staff. In the current study, rather than relying on researchers, the authors used staff instructors to collect VPF and assessed how that experience influenced the instructors' use of BSP. Results suggest that VPF provided, on average, a doubling in rates of BSP use by directly targeted staff and more than a 50% increase in rates of BSP in nontargeted instructors who collected BSP data. Furthermore, three of the four participants had substantially higher praise-to-correction ratios during the VPF intervention when compared with baseline and reversal conditions. Implications for improving treatment fidelity and reducing supervision time are discussed.

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