Three years of work in a research project to evaluate a community mental health program have been reviewed. Problems in hypothesis formation, research design and instrument validation have been discussed. Positive correlations have been found between the degree of emotional disturbance in school children and teacher's reportings, school achievement, a group test, sociometric data and mother's symptom reporting. Positive correlations have been found between attitudes of mothers toward children and the social class of the family. We find a greater number of referrals of disturbed children in the upper class and extreme lower class, fewer in the middle and upper lower classes. Boys are referred more frequently than girls. More boys are in the clinically disturbed criterion group, and more girls in the normal groups. We also report an hypothesis about the relationship between maternal attitudes and children's symptoms as shown by open-ended questions, and a concept for coding and analyzing the responses.Abstract Teaser