The Traumatic Events Screening Inventory (TESI) is an 18-item questionnaire concerning potentially traumatic events to which a child may have been exposed. The TESI improves on previous instrumentation by including both a child and parent version of the instrument. The questionnaire was administered to a sub-set of consecutively seen intakes in a child psychiatric outpatient clinic; children and one-parent and two-parent households participated. Identification of traumatic event exposure allows the clinician to comprehensively assess and understand a child's functioning and thereby assist in treatment. The TESI also is of potential benefit for clinical research purposes, and can be integrated with other methods. A limitation is the level of psychometric maturity, but this limitation does not appear to interfere significantly with the clinical benefits of using the inventory. Tables, references