Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Vision: Help all children reach their full potential by promoting healthy development. 

Core Values: Excellence in family-centered behavioral health care provided with compassion and respect. 

Our Division draws inspiration from Frederick Douglass, noted Rochester social reformer, who said, "It’s easier to build strong children than to fix broken men." This is why our faculty and staff are committed to advancing clinical care applying the biopsychosocial model. We advance knowledge through research, create and implement prevention programs, and train the next generation of mental health providers.

Services

The Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at UR Medicine is the largest pediatric provider of outpatient services in the region, and offers the only inpatient and partial hospitalization programs in Western New York. In partnership with children and their families, our division serves individuals from birth to early adulthood to promote healthy growth and development. 

• Child and Adolescent Inpatient Service: Treats patients ages five through 18 who have symptoms of acute psychiatric illness or disorder requiring a safe, therapeutic, and supportive environment.
• Child and Adolescent Mobile Crisis Team Services: A mobile psychiatric emergency team for individuals and families within Monroe County who are experiencing a crisis in mental health to divert individuals who are not at risk of harming themselves, as well as their families, from the county’s psychiatric emergency departments.
• Child and Adolescent Partial Hospitalization Service: An alternative to psychiatric inpatient admissions or re-hospitalization for adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 who do not require a secure inpatient unit.
• Pediatric Behavioral Health and Wellness (Outpatient Services): A multidisciplinary team cares for children, adolescents and families with a variety of mental health concerns in an outpatient setting.
• Pediatric Psychiatry Consultation and Liaison: Provides clinical consultation, education and support to UR Medicine Golisano Children’s Hospital.
• School Mental Health (FairStart Program): Offers comprehensive clinical services in a school setting, as well as prevention programs and training for educators.

Community Programs

• Project TEACH (Training and Education for the Advancement of Children’s Health): Psychiatry training for pediatricians and primary care providers with a subspecialty interest in mental health and wellness.
• Rochester Youth Violence Partnership (RYVP): A hospital-based intervention program and community partnership focused on reducing and preventing violence in our community.
• Sources of Strength: A suicide prevention program that trains secondary school students to strengthen natural coping resources and disseminate the intervention through social networks.

Clinical Education

• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program: Over the past 60 years, we have built a dynamic fellowship program with an array of clinical and scholarly experiences aimed at training expert child psychiatrists in diagnosis, treatment, interdisciplinary planning and primary patient care.
• Clinical Social Work: In the Clinical Social Work Training Program, students learn the skills required to work with individuals, families, groups, and communities. Interns get exposure to clinical practice, learn to apply relevant technology, and learn to collaborate in an interdisciplinary setting.
• Psychology Postdoctoral Fellowship Child and Adolescent Track: The Child and Adolescent track provides specialized clinical training with children, adolescents, and families. Postdoctoral Fellows provide supervised care of children and adolescents who are experiencing a broad range of psychological disturbances.
• Psychology Doctoral Internship Child and Adolescent Track: The APA-accredited child and adolescent doctoral internship track provides specialized clinical training with children, adolescents, and families.  Interns deliver supervised care of children and adolescents who are experiencing a broad range of psychological disturbances in ambulatory, inpatient, and primary care settings.

Research and Prevention

• Lab for Innovation in Child Mental Health Delivery: Focuses on advancing integrated care initiatives, pediatric mental health research and crisis services.
• Network Health Prevention Program: Develops and evaluates interventions within natural youth social settings to spread health and reduce behavior problems such as adolescent vaping.

Other Division faculty research includes perinatal stress and children’s health, testing family interventions, and training to improve suicide prevention in treatment and education settings.

Faculty