Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship

The Child/Adolescent Psychiatry (CAP) Training Program at Cambridge Health Alliance is a two-year training program first certified by the ACGME on April 30, 1967. Our program proudly has its roots in public sector, multicultural, community-based care.

We are committed to training highly ethical, compassionate, and skilled physicians who provide excellent psychiatric care to children and families of all backgrounds. We embrace a bio-psycho-socio-cultural framework and teach fellows to use this to provide integrated, collaborative and family-centered care. We aim to develop leaders in community child and adolescent psychiatry who will embody these core clinical values, and work to improve the systems, science, and practices supporting children and families in need.

Program Overview and Educational Approach

The training experience has a strong foundation of adult learning principles, and includes a combination of interactive didactics, longitudinal and rotation-based clinical practice, individual and group supervision, and independent and group projects and scholarship.

During the two years, fellows:

• develop proficiency in performing bio-psycho-socio-cultural evaluations of children and families of diverse backgrounds in a variety of treatment settings.
• are taught to engage families in shared decision making around the most evidence-based, cost-effective, and appropriate treatment plans for each family’s unique set of preferences, beliefs, and strengths.
• develop a deep understanding of the systems of care that can be rallied to support children and families, and have extensive opportunities to participate in these collaborations throughout fellowship.
• will become proficient in the judicious use of medication and other biological interventions in the treatment of psychiatric disorders in youth.
• will develop proficiency in a range of psychotherapy techniques, including: intensive psychodynamic individual psychotherapy, intensive family therapy, brief and focused individual and family therapies, supportive psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral psychotherapy, dialectical behavior therapy, motivational interviewing, psycho-educational interventions, and group therapy.
• develop their skills of leadership, scholarship, and quality improvement in community mental health care through experiential learning in such topics as: health equity and disparities, social determinants of health, structural competency and population health.

The first year is divided into five 10-week blocks that allow fellows to develop expertise in a variety of settings, including:

• General Child and Adolescent Inpatient Psychiatry, Neurodevelopmental Disorders Inpatient Psychiatry
• Psychiatric Emergency Services
• Neurodevelopmental / Autism Assessment Clinic
• Wrap-around community services
• Residential psychiatric facility
• Inpatient and outpatient pediatric medical settings

In addition, rotations within each block focus on issues such as developmental disorders, pediatric neurology, early childhood development and infant mental health, interdisciplinary outpatient diagnostic evaluations, pediatric primary care-mental health integration, and adolescent addiction services.

Fellows also have the chance to work alongside clinicians who provide consultation to state agencies such as DMH, DCF, the Cambridge Police Department, and those who help shape/develop policies through their work with Massachusetts' Medicaid Program, MassHealth.

Also in the first year, trainees begin their longitudinal outpatient experience in both psychotherapy and psychopharmacology, and begin a longitudinal group quality and process improvement project. Fellows conduct psychiatric evaluations in support of children seeking asylum.

Finally, all fellows have elective time during the first year that can be used to pursue individual interests within the field.

The second year is focused on seeing a diverse outpatient population for a full range of treatments including family therapy, group therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy and psychodynamic psychotherapies.

In addition, second-year fellows gain exposure to the juvenile court clinic. They also learn about school consultation through a year-long school placement in the Cambridge Public Schools.

All second year fellows also have 8 hours of weekly dedicated elective time throughout the year, and continue work on their group quality improvement project.