For Immediate Release

Washington, DC, June 26, 2020 – The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) is proud to announce the establishment of the Leatherman-Ritvo Endowment Fund for the Advancement of Psychodynamic Understanding and Psychodynamically Informed Child Therapies in Honor of Martin Drell, MD, Samuel Ritvo, MD, and Lucille B. Ritvo, PhD. The Fund is made possible through a joint gift of $250,000 from Dr. Edward Leatherman, and the Samuel and Lucille B. Ritvo Charitable Fund. 

“We are grateful and proud of this new fund, not only for AACAP, but for the future of our specialty. This effort stands as a true testament to our capacity for great compassion, generosity, and big picture thinking,” said AACAP President, Gabrielle Carlson, MD. 

The Fund is intended to preserve and promote psychodynamic understanding and psychodynamically informed therapies in child and adolescent psychiatry through modalities such as training, research, economic analysis, or professional development, among others. The Fund will be used to create and support educational resources as needed by training programs such as online courses and other curricular materials; mentorship and training in supervision; and highlighting best practices in psychodynamic psychotherapy in child and adolescent psychiatry. 

“With this endowment fund, we hope to keep psychodynamic ideas and psychodynamic therapies alive as an integral part of the scope of practice for child and adolescent psychiatrists. The youth of our nation and world deserve no less than the best our field has to offer from its past and its present as we look towards the future,” said Edward Leatherman, MD and Martin Drell, MD.

The initiative is administered by AACAP’s Psychotherapy Committee, and guided by a Steering Committee with Dr. Martin Drell serving as the Steering Committee’s Chair. 

For more information, please contact Reilly Polka, Communications Manager, AACAP, at rpolka@aacap.org, or by phone at 202.966.7300, ext. 154.

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The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry promotes the healthy development of children, adolescents, and families through advocacy, education, and research. Child and adolescent psychiatrists are the leading physician authority on children’s mental health. For more information, please visit www.aacap.org