Advocate for Children’s Mental Health and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry!
Advocacy Campaign: How Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists Can Affect Federal and State Policy

Thursday, October 25
1:30 – 3:30 p.m. (open)

Attend AACAP’s Advocacy Campaign and learn about legislative issues affecting the profession. The AACAP’s ten-year priority is to increase child and adolescent psychiatry’s workforce. There is no better way to advocate for better access to care for children and adolescents with mental illness or child and adolescent psychiatry than through the Child Healthcare Crisis Relief Act. This legislation addresses the critical national shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists and other children’s mental health professionals by creating education incentives that encourage people to enter these fields.

Congressional contacts and building relationships are the most effective means to educate members of Congress. The AACAP Director of Government Affairs, Kristin Kroeger Ptakowski, provides an overview of AACAP’s legislative issues and the progress our advocacy efforts have made to date. Elizabeth Rorick, J.D., AACAP, Assistant Director of Government Affairs, presents materials and strategies for educating congressional representatives. An overview of AACAP’s legislative activities at the state and local levels of government is also provided. Harsh Trivedi, M.D., AACAP Advocacy Liaison to the Department of Government Affairs, shares insights from a physician’s perspective on the advocacy process and will present practical methods of how to get more involved. A training session is provided on how to conduct an effective meeting with your legislators.

Sponsored by the AACAP Government Affairs Department