The AACAP applauds Reps. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and Sens. Bingaman (D-NM) and Collins (R-ME) for supporting the Child Healthcare Crisis Relief Act, which offers education incentives to individuals entering the child and adolescent mental health care field.
For immediate release:
Mar 01, 2005
Contact:
Jim Wood, Director Development and Communications
202.966.7300, ext. 120, jwood@aacap.org
Kristin Kroeger Ptakowski, AACAP Director of Government Affairs and Clinical Practice
202.966.7300, ext. 108, kkroeger@aacap.org
WASHINGTON, DC—The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) applauds Reps. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and Sens. Bingaman (D-NM) and Collins (R-ME) for their sponsorship of the Child Healthcare Crisis Relief Act, which provides education incentives, including scholarships, grants and other training support, to individuals entering the field of children’s mental health.
The AACAP supports this legislation, which addresses the critical national shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists by extending federal graduate medical education funding support to child and adolescent psychiatry training programs, and by creating a loan forgiveness program that includes child and adolescent psychiatry trainees. President Bush’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health reported that many children with mental illnesses do not receive treatment and identified the shortage of children’s mental health specialists as one of the main barriers to treatment.
AACAP President Richard Sarles, M.D., said, "The Child Healthcare Crisis Relief Act will help remove one of the key barriers to treatment for children and adolescents with mental illnesses, the lack of available specialists trained in this field. Enactment of this legislation will allow child and adolescent psychiatrists to receive Federal support to complete their training, which will remove a significant financial burden on the hospitals and medical schools that operate these training programs, and improve recruitment into this shortage specialty. We thank Reps. Kennedy and Ros-Lehtinen and Sens. Bingaman and Collins for their long-standing commitment to increasing access to mental health treatment for children and their families, and will work with them to ensure passage of this bill."
For more information visit www.aacap.org or www.campaignforamericaskids.org.
Representing over 7,500 child and adolescent psychiatrists nationwide, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) is the leading authority on children’s mental health. AACAP members actively research, diagnose, and treat psychiatric disorders affecting children, adolescents, and their families.
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) is the leading authority on children’s mental health. AACAP members actively research, diagnose, and treat psychiatric disorders affecting children, adolescents, and their families.
Our Facts for Families, available free of charge on the AACAP website, provide concise and up-to-date information on a wide array of issues relating to children’s mental health. Written in a simple, straightforward manner, these 88 one-page fact sheets are valuable to anyone raising or working with children. In addition, the AACAP routinely refers the media to expert spokespeople on child and adolescent issues, and sponsors The Campaign for America’s Kids – an initiative designed to fund an Advocacy Institute for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, with the goal of mental health for all children.
AACAP Mission: The Mission of the AACAP is the promotion of mentally healthy children, adolescents and families through research, training, advocacy, prevention, comprehensive diagnosis and treatment, peer support and collaboration.
