The Comprehensive Community Mental Health Center

Community Mental Health in Canada offers a timely, critical overview of the provision of public mental health services in Canada, past, present, and future. This new edition has been substantially revised and expanded and includes a deeper discussion of stigma, the recovery vision, the pharmaceutical industry, and mental health law, in addition to an array of new topics. Recent developments such as the creation of the Mental Health Commission of Canada in 2007 and the release of its national mental health strategy document in 2012 are also discussed. Accessibly written and highly informative, it is an indispensable resource for students, practitioners, and policy makers, as well as service recipients and their families.

This issue consists of five articles profiling different aspects of the national evaluation of the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program. Over the last eight years, this program provided grants to develop community-based systems of care for children with serious emotional disturbance and their families. A comprehensive, multilevel evaluation has been conducted that has provided information to local grantee communities and the federal government on the implementation and effectiveness of systems of care. Touching on a range of questions that the evaluation is designed to address, the articles in this special issue provide more general information on the system-of-care approach to addressing children's mental health problems.