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Team members in the Outpatient Psychiatry Service at Boston Children’s Hospital have long been at the forefront of providing expert, compassionate care to children and adolescents with a variety of mental health problems.

The Outpatient Psychiatry Service offers comprehensive evaluations for a wide range of conditions that affect the mental, emotional, and social health of children and adolescents. New patients receive a diagnostic evaluation and specific treatment recommendations tailored to the child and family.

Our team includes seasoned clinicians, clinical researchers, and innovative educators in the fields of child psychology, clinical social work, and child and adolescent psychiatry. A majority of our clinicians actively provide teaching and supervision to our psychology, psychiatry, and social worker trainees, resulting in carefully considered assessment and care plans for our patients.

The first step in our assessment and treatment process is a diagnostic evaluation. A diagnostic evaluation is a comprehensive assessment of emotional and behavioral problems. This evaluation will help you better understand your child’s mental health. Your clinician will summarize their evaluation findings and provide treatment recommendations. Your clinician may recommend treatment in Outpatient Psychiatry or elsewhere. Some problems require long-term care and whenever feasible, once your child has been stabilized, we work with behavioral health clinicians or primary care practitioners in the community who can assume the care of your child.

Who we see

We primarily serve patients who are 0 to 17 years old at the time of the scheduled evaluation appointment but will sometimes see younger or older patients based upon clinical need.

We do not evaluate patients in crisis. For immediate safety concerns, call 911 or the Behavioral Health Help Line (BHHL), which is available 24/7, at 833-773-2445.

What we offer

In-person evaluations are conducted at Boston Children’s Brookline, Boston Children's Waltham, or Boston Children's Weymouth.

A virtual evaluation is available when clinically appropriate. It is a live, interactive video visit between you, your child, and your clinician, and is similar to an in-person visit. The virtual evaluation is completely secure and can be completed on any type of mobile device (cell phone or tablet) or computer with a camera, speaker, and microphone.

We also have multilingual providers available for in-person services to better support our diverse patient community. If you or your child prefers to communicate in a language other than English, please let us know when scheduling your appointment so we can accommodate your needs.

Requesting an evaluation

To request a psychiatric evaluation, please call us at 617-355-6680 (option 1). If our intake staff are not immediately able to answer your call, they will call you for an initial screening. Please note that we must speak directly to the child’s parent/legal guardian.

After this initial telephone screening, if your child/you are eligible for services in Outpatient Psychiatry, intake staff will send you the Family Self-Report (FSR) Form by email or standard USPS mail, or you can download it at the links below.

Completing this questionnaire and sending it back will help make your visit more efficient and the evaluation more comprehensive.

Additional considerations

The following referrals are not routinely appropriate for our Outpatient Psychiatry Service and are referred elsewhere: