Increasing Our Commitment to Mental Health

We are pleased to share with you that we will be significantly increasing our commitment and capacity for meeting the mental health needs of our patients and participating nationally in addressing the broader problem of providing diagnosis and treatment of children’s mental health issues.

Back in 2011, Dr. Yellin participated in a mini-fellowship given by the REACH Institute, a national nonprofit led by leaders in child psychiatry, psychology, and pediatrics. The fellowship was intended to equip pediatricians with the knowledge and skill needed to address more of their patient’s mental health needs, consistent with the best evidence-based therapies, to improve the mental health of children and adolescents. The fellowship was delivered in collaboration with CAP-PC NY (Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for Primary Care) and had three primary goals:

1. to train pediatricians and other primary care providers to correctly identify and differentiate among pediatric behavioral health problems such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, aggression, mood disorders, and psychosis; 
2. To provide the fellowship participants with training in effectively managing psychopharmacology: selecting medications, initiating and tapering dosages, monitoring improvements, and identifying and minimizing medication side effects; and  
3. To provide the participants with ongoing real-time consultation and mentorship by child psychiatrists at five university-based Departments of Psychiatry at the University at Buffalo; University of Rochester; Columbia University Medical Center/New York State Psychiatric Institute; SUNY Upstate; and Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine. 

After Dr. Yellin completed the mini-fellowship, we were able to expand our capacity here at The Yellin Center for meeting more of our patients' mental health needs, including psychopharmacology. This is an important aspect of the support we provide to families, especially in light of the continuing shortage of pediatric psychiatrists.

Recently, Dr. Yellin applied and was accepted to become a member of the Faculty of the REACH Institute. This weekend he began that journey by participating in the REACH Institute’s two day Train the Trainer Program: Patient-Centered Mental Health in Pediatric Primary Care. Over the next six months, as Faculty-In-Training, Dr. Yellin will be participating in various activities to complete his training, more fully contribute to this important initiative, and continue to build his clinical expertise to better serve our families.

Long-Term Impact of Bullying

We’ve blogged about bullying several times in recent posts – including looking at the impact of peers on stemming bullying behavior and using technology to reduce bullying. Unfortunately, the occurrence of bullying, with one in four students reporting being victims, is all too common itself.  The importance of preventing such cruelty is intuitive, but some recent research  has yielded data that highlights the seriousness of this issue.

In an article published late last year in JAMA Psychiatry, a team of researchers from Finland and Israel looked back at data collected in 1989, when over 5,000 eight-year-olds in Finland were surveyed about their experiences, or lack thereof, with bullying.  The researchers then looked at national health records to see if these same children went on to receive treatment for psychiatric disorders when they were between the ages of 16 and 29 years old.  They found that being bullied when young correlated, after adjusting for other factors linked to psychiatric risk, with nearly twice the risk of needing psychiatric treatment later in life.  It is also interesting to note that most of the eight-year-olds who bullied others had existing psychiatric symptoms at that time as well as later.  This suggests that incidents of bullying should be red flags for both the victims’ and the perpetrators’ need for help.

Photo credit: One Way Stock via flickr cc