Division of Child Psychiatry
Dept of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Child and Youth Mental Health Program
The Child and Youth Mental Health Program (CYMHP) provides services for children, youth and families who are dealing with mental health concerns (up to their 18th birthday). The services we provide span the continuum of care, and include (1) Community Education and the Family Resource Centre, (2) the Child and Youth Emergency Mental Health Services (CHYMES), (3) Ambulatory Services, (4) Day Hospital, and (5) Inpatient Services. We also provide consultation-liaison services to McMaster Children’s Hospital. We are located at two sites, McMaster Children’s Hospital and Ron Joyce Children's Heath Care. Care is provided by multi-disciplinary teams including child psychiatry, psychology, nursing, social work, child and youth workers, occupational therapy, and pharmacy.
Initiatives
Dr. Lipman
Mental health problems and health service utilization of teen mothers; evaluation of the Big Brothers Big Sisters Adult Mentoring Program
Dr. Sassi
Understanding neurobiological mechanisms of mood disorders in youth and possible early interventions; effects of physical activity in patients with mood disorders; multigenerational transmission of risk for psychopathology
Dr. Boylan
Measurement and treatment of emotion dysregulation, primarily in adolescent patients; clinical study testing the ability of EEG to distinguish chronic irritability from depression in a broad clinical sample and how baseline EEG may be related to treatment responsiveness to antidepressant; epidemiologic study of factors associated with antidepressant responsiveness in teens, and measurement of irritability and oppositional defiant disorder
Dr. Bennett
Canadian Family Check-Up study of targeted prevention and early intervention program aimed at addressing childhood emotional and behaviour problems; interest/expertise in developmental psychiatry, early social communication as a marker of risk for ASD as well as neurodevelopmental and psychosocial risk, early intervention targeting preschoolers at risk for ASD and other mental health/neurodevelopmental problems
Dr. Couturier
Etiology and treatment of adolescents with eating disorders
Dr. MacMillan
Randomized controlled trials evaluating the effectiveness of approaches to preventing child maltreatment and intimate partner violence
Dr. Soreni
Early intervention program in pediatric OCD; leading one of two McMaster clinical POND research sites; study of behavioral economics of hoarding and OCDs across the lifespan
Application to Consumer
Children with mental illness and developmental disabilities deserve expert, evidence-based care that is informed by an understanding of the biological and environmental factors that shape their well-being and health development. Such a culture of care requires strong collaborations with researchers, teachers, community based service providers and knowledge leaders. Many of the faculty members and clinicians are involved in research that aims to improve the mental health and developmental path of children and youth. We are proud to collaborate with the Offord Centre for Child Studies in a shared mission to enhance the mental health and well-being of children with mental health and neurodevelopmental disabilities.
We are working on strengthening the link between the clinical program and academic/research initiatives of the individual researchers within the Child and Youth Mental Program as well as CYMHP-wide initiatives, with the objective of . increasing these clinical/research/academic links.