Mental health center management: an exercise in eighth grade arithmetic

A community child guidance center shifted from individual evaluation and long term psychotherapy for children and their parents to brief family and group oriented modalities. As a result, the center experienced an increase in requests for direct services and attempted to accept all referrals. At the same time, it became involved in several consultation and training activities. Although the staff and facilities expanded, the service system was overloaded. The mental health professionals organized a committee to recommend ways to resolve the center's crisis and develop more effective management. The committee analyzed the intake evaluation, and treatment procedures, and revised them to be more selective and less time consuming.