Schools are increasingly involved in efforts to promote health and healthy behavior among their adolescent students, but are healthier students better learners? This synthesis of the empirical, longitudinal literature investigated the effects of the most predominant health-related behaviors—namely, alcohol and marijuana use, smoking, nutrition, physical activity, sexual intercourse, bullying, and screen time use (television, Internet, video games)—on the academic performance of adolescents. Thirty studies dating back to 1992 were retrieved from the medical, psychological, educational, and social science literature. Healthy nutrition and team sports participation were found to have a positive effect on academic performance, whereas the effects of alcohol use, smoking, early sexual intercourse, bullying, and certain screen time behaviors were overall negative. Generally, all relations of health-related behaviors and academic performance were dependent on contextual factors and were often mediated by psychosocial problems, social structures, and demographics. Findings were interpreted with use of sociological theories.

Assessment and decision-making in child maltreatment cases is difficult. Practitioners face many uncertainties and obstacles during their assessment and decision-making process. Research exhibits shortcomings in this decision-making process. The purpose of this literature review is to identify and discuss methods to overcome these shortcomings. We conducted a systematic review of the published literature on decision-making using PsychINFO and MEDLINE from 2000 through May 2014. We included reviews and quantitative research studies that investigated methods aimed at improving professional decision-making on child abuse and neglect in child welfare and child protection. Although many researchers have published articles on decision-making including ideas and theories to improve professional decision-making, empirical research on these improvements is scarce. Available studies have shown promising results. Structured decision-making has created a greater child-centred and holistic approach that takes the child's family and environment into account, which has made practitioners work more systematically and improved the analysis of complex situations. However, this approach has not improved inter-rater agreement on decisions made. Shared decision-making may improve the participation of parents and children and the quality of decisions by taking client treatment preferences into account in addition to scientific evidence and clinical experience. A number of interesting developments appear in recent research literature; however, child welfare and child protection must find additional inspiration from other areas, e.g., mental health services, because research on decision-making processes in child welfare and child protection is still rare.

Research on school bullying often focuses on the directional path of bullying and/or victimization leading to psychosocial problems, while such one-dimensional views have been shown to be too simplistic. Furthermore, recent research has shown that patterns of bullying at school differ for boys and girls, which makes gender a particularly relevant factor in exploring the causes and consequences of bullying. Therefore, the present study explored the bidirectional, longitudinal associations of bullying and bullying victimization on several psychosocial problems via a longitudinal cross-lagged panel study in 1243 adolescents in the Netherlands, while taking into account potential gender differences. Data were collected in September 2011 and 2012. Results showed that both bullied boys as well as girls reported more conduct problems at follow-up. Both boy and girl bullies reported less pro-social behavior and more peer problems at follow-up, but boys also reported more conduct problems at follow-up, while girls did not. Furthermore, in girls, emotional problems were associated with more victimization at follow-up, while inattention-hyperactivity problems and less pro-social behavior were related to increased chances of being a perpetrator of bully at follow-up. Conversely, in boys, baseline inattention-hyperactivity problems were not associated with being a bully later on, but rather with increased chances of being a bullying victim at later times. These results can help to tailor future anti-bullying interventions at schools.

Child welfare and child protection workers regularly make placement decisions in child abuse cases, but how they reach these decisions is not well understood. This study focuses on workers' rationales. The aim was to investigate the kinds of arguments provided in placement decisions and whether these arguments were predictors for the decision, in addition to the decision-makers' risk assessment, work experience and attitudes towards placement. The sample consisted of 214 professionals and 381 students from the Netherlands. The participants were presented with a vignette describing a case of alleged child abuse and were asked to determine whether the abuse was substantiated, to assess risks and to recommend an intervention. The participants' placement attitudes were assessed using a structured questionnaire. We found that the participants provided a wide range of arguments, but that core arguments - such as the suspected abuse, parenting and parent-child interaction - were often missing. Regression analyses showed that the higher the perceived danger to the child and the more positive the participants' attitudes towards placement, the more likely the participants would be to propose placing the child in care. Arguments related to the severity of the problems (i.e., suspected abuse, parenting and the child's development) as well as the parents' perceived cooperation also influenced placement decisions. The findings indicate trends in the decision-making process, in the sense that participants who decided to place the child out-of-home emphasized different arguments and had different attitudes towards out-of-home placement than those who did not. We discuss the implications of our findings.

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The art therapy (AT) program for children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), 'Images of Self', has been evaluated with repeated single case studies (n = 12) in a mixed-methods design. The program focuses on children's difficulties with their 'sense of self', 'emotion regulation', 'flexibility' and 'social behavior'. Parents, teachers and art therapists scored the BRIEF and CSBQ, instruments for rating child behavior. Children filled out the SPPC, a self-image scale. To evaluate the quality of the program, therapists used a child observation scale (OAT-A) and a therapists' self-evaluation scale (EAT-A). All instruments were applied three to five times per case, depending on the corresponding measurement objectives: one week before the start of the program (T0), during session 3 (T1), session 8 (T2), session 15 (T3), and 15 weeks after termination of the treatment (T4). Parents and teachers were invited to complete a form for qualitative comments which was structured around the four problem areas. Therapists video-recorded three sessions and evaluated these with parents and -during training sessions -with the principal investigator. At the end of the treatment parents, teachers and art therapists gave a rating for their overall satisfaction with the treatment. Main improvements after treatment were seen in children's flexible and social behavior. Overall satisfaction regarding the program showed averages between 7.1 and 7.7. Implications of our study for the AT-practice and future research are discussed.

Two instruments were developed and examined to enable treatment evaluation for art therapy (AT) with children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). One instrument is the OAT-A (Observation in Art Therapy with a child diagnosed ASD), the other the EAT-A (Evaluation of actions of the Art Therapist during treatment of a child diagnosed ASD). Both scales were refined in a three round procedure. In each round raters (art therapists and students) observed and coded four videos of different AT sessions. For each round interrater reliability was tested and when necessary items were revised. In each round the first video was used for training purposes only. Both instruments showed in the third round an acceptable level of intercoder agreement. Using the OAT-A and EAT-A in clinical research requires extensive training of raters who preferably work in pairs, thereby enabling comparison of their assessments. It is concluded that important steps have been taken to enable systematic evaluation of art therapy with children diagnosed ASD including the actions of the art therapist.

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