Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Residency Training Program

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Advocacy Initiative

Our Child and Adolescent Mental Health Advocacy Initiative (CAMHAI) is an office that works with community groups, consumer advocates, healthcare providers, educators and policy makers to improve mental health services and access for children and families through policy and through community-based solutions.

We consider it important that our residents be exposed to child mental health advocacy. Therefore, they all receive instruction in advocacy issues and efforts through seminars given by the staff of our CAMHAI.

Children's Mental Health Campaign

In addition, we encourage residents with specific interests in this area to directly participate in our ongoing advocacy efforts, such as the Children's Mental Health Campaign (CMHC) and Boston's Birth-to-Five School Readiness Initiative.

CMHC was initiated in the context that more than 100,000 - 70 percent - of the children who need mental health services in Massachusetts do not receive them. Inconsistent mental health policies among state agencies, and multiple but separate funding streams, have resulted in a fragmented delivery system that is difficult to access and navigate.

To address these challenges, we have collaborated with the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC), Health Care For All, Health Law Advocates, Inc. and the Parent/Professional Advocacy League to launch the long-term CMHC calling for major reform of the state's mental health care system for children.

Announced in November 2006, the campaign was introduced by the release of a paper, "Children's Mental Health in the Commonwealth: The Time is Now," co-authored by Children's and the MSPCC. The paper describes a seriously flawed mental health care system and advances specific recommendations for prevention, timely diagnosis and appropriate intervention for children.

The legislation calls for changes that will:

1. identify mental illness earlier in children by reaching them in familiar and easily accessible settings - especially schools, early education programs and pediatricians' offices
2. ensure that when identified, the illness is treated in the least restrictive, appropriate setting
3. improve insurance coverage for children with mental health needs
4. restructure the oversight, evaluation and provision of children's mental health services administered by the state

Boston's Birth-to-Five School Readiness Initiative

Boston's Birth-to-Five School Readiness Initiative is a second major advocacy challenge taken up by our department that involves collaboration with the Mayor's Office of the City of Boston and the Boston Public Schools, in an initiative to reduce or prevent factors known to contribute to the academic achievement gap among poor, inner-city children.

Known as 'Boston's Birth-to-Five School Readiness Initiative,' this process involves a coalition of over 50 people from the public and private sectors of Greater Boston who are experts and leaders in the field of childhood education, early child care, community service delivery, child development and child and family mental health.

After nearly a year of meetings dedicated to identifying key causal factors and potential solutions, this committee is now in the stages of preparing specific recommendations to the Mayor's office. They are also setting up mechanisms to oversee the implementation and evaluation of the impact of the proposed action plan designed to improve the status of poor, inner-city children and their families.