ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes briefly some of the findings describing parent and teacher perceptions of children’s behavior as they relate to parents’ perceptions of the placement process. The conventional wisdom held that parents were probably major contributors to the emotional disorders of their children, their perceptions of placements were affected by their own problems, and they rarely attended meetings anyway, even when invited. The information presented to parents during placement meetings is technical and complicated. In 1984, the National Institute of Mental Health began the Child and Adolescent Service System Program as an impetus to improve services for children, with a special emphasis on developing family support. The task facing the field is to make multisource assessment of children suspected of having emotional or behavioral disorders standard practice, and for parent observations to be treated as valid information critical to the decision-making process.
