Maryland AAP chapter hosts conference on brief mental health interventions for pediatric clinicans

The Maryland chapter of the American Academy of Pediatricians is hosting a two-part conference for pediatric clinicians interested in learning brief techniques for child mental health concerns.

Registration is free, and you don't have to be an AAP member to attend. The first meeting will be held Saturday, May 7 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Presentation topics will include discipline and effective parenting, behavior modification, sleep problems and more.

Part two will take place Saturday, June 4 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. This meeting will cover screening tools for mental health and behavior problems, brief interventions for ADHD, depression and anxiety, billing, coding and the mental health referral process, among other topics.

Both meetings will be held at the Western Maryland Hospital Center Auditorium in Hagerstown, M.D. Continuing education credits are available. Click here for more details and a conference registration form.

'Mini-grant' funds COMMHAT training program

COMMHAT has received a "mini-grant" from the Maryland Consortium for Children with Special Health Care Needs to develop training for primary care providers and others who provide front-line child mental health services in western Maryland. Led by the Maryland AAP's Committee on Emotional Health, the training will take place in two weekend sessions in the spring 2011. The training also provides an opportunity to test potential "common elements" modules. These modules may be combined with other interventions in training programs to support primary care providers' efforts to identify and treat child mental health problems.

COMMHAT gets funding to set up support system for primary care providers

With funding from a small grant from American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, COMMHAT has been working with Tri-State Community Health Center in Hancock, Maryland, to support pediatric mental health care through better links to community agencies and via teleconferencing. Community links were built by establishing a referral mechanism from Tri-State to the western Maryland office of The Parents' Place of Maryland, a peer support, education and advocacy organization for parents of children with disabilities. Psychologists at the University of Maryland, College Park and child psychiatrists at the University of Maryland, Baltimore provide the teleconferencing for child mental health consultation to Tri-State pediatricians.