Children experiencing complex emotional and behavioural disorders face significant challenges across their daily environments—at home, in school, and within their broader social worlds. These difficulties not only affect immediate functioning but also contribute to heightened risk for persistent mental health problems across development and into adulthood. Despite the availability of evidence-based psychosocial interventions, a persistent concern remains: many children and families do not experience meaningful benefit from treatment, and the field still struggles to determine how to match interventions to individual needs and contexts.

 

In this talk, Dr. Brendan Andrade will present his program of translational clinical research aimed at advancing the personalization of psychosocial treatment for this population. Drawing from innovative methodological approaches, his work seeks to identify the biopsychosocial variables that predict and mediate treatment response in both children and their caregivers. Dr. Andrade will highlight findings from clinic-based studies, as well as community-partnered research designed to improve real-world fit, feasibility, and sustainability of interventions.

 

By integrating science, clinical practice, and lived experience perspectives, this talk will describe Dr. Andrade’s work that moves the field closer to answering a foundational question in child mental health: Which treatments work, for whom, and under what conditions?