TREATING MALADAPTIVE AGGRESSION (T-MAY)

Through the collaboration of The REACH Institute, the Center for Education and Research on Mental Health Therapeutics (CERTs) at Rutgers University, and 60 participating national experts in the fields of policy, research, advocacy and child and adolescent psychiatry, a new guideline for primary care providers and mental health specialists has been released for managing childhood aggression.  This guideline, the Treatment of Maladaptive Aggression in Youth (T‐MAY) will soon be published in the journal Pediatrics.  T-MAY also includes a publicly available, user-friendly toolkit.

This guideline was developed to help mental health specialists and primary care clinicians work closely together in the optimal management of the all too common, but very difficult problem of aggression in children and youth.  The guideline was developed through an extensive process of evidence-based literature reviews, a survey of experts, a consensus conference with over 60 participants (including primary care clinicians, child psychiatrists and psychologists, policy makers, and aggression researchers), a lengthy writing process that entailed repeated iteration and progressive refinement to produce a final version, guideline and toolkit endorsement by 15 leading US professional and advocacy organizations (including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry), the creation of a free, user-friendly "toolkit" for use by clinicians in assessing and managing child/youth aggression, and publication in the journal Pediatrics.   The two-part guideline is in press in the journal Pediatrics (Knapp P, Chait A, Pappadopulos E, Crystal S, Jensen PS, & the T-MAY Steering Group. Treatment of Maladaptive Aggression in Youth (T-MAY). CERT Guidelines I. Family Engagement, Assessment & Diagnosis, and Initial Management.  Pediatrics, in press; and Scotto Rosato N, Correll CU, Pappadopulos E, Chait A, Crystal S, Jensen PS, & the T-MAY Steering Group. Treatment of Maladaptive Aggression in Youth (T-MAY).  CERT Guidelines II. Psychosocial Interventions, Medication Treatments, and Side Effects Management.  Pediatrics, in press).

Click to download the user-friendly T-MAY toolkit.

The guidelines are intended for both primary care and specialty mental health prescribers. As such, T‐MAY ultimately relies on physician expertise and discretion, and is not intended to undermine clinical judgment. The T‐MAY Clinician’s Tool Kit is a concise reference guide designed to aid clinicians in their implementation of T‐MAY.

T-MAY Steering Committee

Peter S. Jensen, M.D. (Chair)   Danielle Laraque, M.D.
Sherrie Bendele, B.S.   Laurel K. Leslie, M.D., M.P.H.
Alanna Chait, B.S.   John Lochman, Ph.D.  
Christoph Correll, M.D.  Judith A. Lucas, APN, Ed.D.
M. Lynn Crismon, Pharm.D.  Matt Perkins, M.D. 
Robert Findling, M.D.  Mark Olfson, M.D.
Tobias Gerhard, Ph.D.  Elizabeth Pappadopulos, Ph.D.
Cindy Gibson  Nancy Parker 
Karen Hart, B.S.  Nancy Scotto Rosato, Ph.D. 
Penelope Knapp, M.D.   Mark Wolraich, M.D.