Family issues to be discussed at conference

The Center for Adolescent and Family Studies at IU will present guest speaker Rene Breuk at 6 p.m. tonight in the Geology building, Room 143, to speak on child and adolescent mental health in the Netherlands.\nBreuk was asked by Tom Sexton, director of the Center for Adolescent and Family Studies, to come to IU to educate faculty, students and the community about the Netherlands' mental health, including the challenges and benefits of Functional Family Therapy in Amsterdam, social and criminal problems affecting Amsterdam's youth and Holland's juvenile justice system.\n"First, I will give an introduction about the Netherlands and about the mental health situation there," Breuk said. "After that, I will speak about how things are implemented at my mental health treatment center for juvenile delinquents."\nThe Center for Adolescent and Family Studies, located in the School of Education, is a research center that focuses on the treatment of vulnerable adolescents and families. Functional Family Therapy is a type of family intervention treatment for troubled juveniles. \n"I'm hoping that people can learn about the center in terms of it as a resource," said Monique Liddle, assistant director of the CAFS.\nShe said the main purpose of the center is to help at-risk adolescents with their problems.\n"We work really hard to remediate and do prevention," Liddle said.\nShe said the point of the presentation is to show the community how this program began in the United States and is now being put into practice.\nBreuk said it is appealing for people to know how mental health treatments are handled in other countries.\n"I think it is interesting to know how things are organized for mental health treatment with juvenile delinquents in a European country," Breuk said. "It is an example of how things develop in the U.S. and are implemented internationally."\nSexton has visited the Netherlands twice to help with presentations, act as a project leader and to work closely with families there. Sexton said he and Breuk have become acquainted with each other through their partnership with the FFT. \n"We are research and service delivery partners with the Netherlands," Sexton said. "This is the beginning of a long-term partnership."\nBreuk is a child/adolescent psychiatrist. For five years he was head of a clinic for children with mental health problems and specialized in helping juveniles with behavioral problems. He is now head of a juvenile delinquent treatment center in the Netherlands.\nSexton said the presentation is open to the public. Anyone who is interested in the CAFS or the FFT should attend. "It is a unique opportunity to listen to how mental health services are developed in another country," Sexton said.\nFor more information about the Center for Adolescent and Family Studies, go online at www.iub.edu/~cafs.\n-- Contact staff writer Dana Sands at dsands@indiana.edu.