About the Mental Health Community

Mental health professionals provide assessment and treatment services, conduct research, deliver trainings, and consult to other professional groups associated with juvenile firesetting. Working as counselors, case managers, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and family therapists they work in variety of settings including community mental health centers, residential centers and group homes, court clinics, public and private schools, and youth corrections facilities.

Issues Facing the Mental Health Community

Mental health and social service professionals are currently limited by the lack of credible and reliable juvenile firesetting information available to them in their university/college training programs or in ongoing professional development opportunities. As a result, our national leadership organizations (APA, NASW, AMFT, etc.) are unable to respond effectively and systematically to address this knowledge gap.

A lack of evidenced based and published guidelines for best practice responding create an environment where children and adolescents who engage in firesetting, and become known to a mental health professional, can be responded to in highly individualistic way that can span from gross over pathologizing to quite dangerous under responding or minimizing.

There is an absence of a national or international organizing body that could serve to promote in a more active way the sharing of information in the field, increase opportunities to collaborate in research, and to promote training and professional development opportunities.

Goals for the Mental HealthCommunity

• To increase awareness in national and international professional organizations on the scope, nature, and extent of juvenile firesetting and the need to systemic improvements in training, intervention, and research practice.
• To create more easy access to credible and evidenced based information on the assessment and treatment of firesetting behavior among children and adolescents.
• To provide increased training and professional development opportunities for practicing professionals.
• To provide opportunities for collaboration in research and data sharing projects among mental health professionals.
• To encourage the dissemination of published information, in both website and journal format, on current advancements in the assessment, treatment, and understanding of child and adolescent firesetting.