AACAP’s Collaborative Leadership Impact for Medicine and Beyond (AACAP CLIMB)
The Collaborative Leadership Impact for Medicine and Beyond (AACAP CLIMB) program provides a first-in-kind leadership program for mid-career child and adolescent psychiatrists. This program seeks to develop individuals who strive to transform our field and profession collaboratively with AACAP.
Child and adolescent psychiatrists are increasingly leading teams and systems. Recognizing this pivotal moment, AACAP leadership has determined a critical need to identify and cultivate leaders who are driven to:
- Prepare for future leadership roles across a diverse range of settings, including healthcare systems, entrepreneurial ventures, insurance payors, AACAP, and other sectors of organized medicine.
- Serve as a prominent voice representing children’s mental health to the media, the general public, and the broader medical community.
- Advocate for change within the legislative and regulatory systems that directly impact the practice of medicine.
- Innovate care delivery systems to fundamentally improve patient access and clinical outcomes.
During this 10-month program, a cohort of 6 participants will develop actionable skills from experienced faculty and CLIMB facilitators. The program includes both in-person and virtual learning sessions, individualized leadership coaching sessions, and expert mentorship.
At the end of the course participants will be able to:
- Lead through influence by deeply evaluating their personal leadership style and blind spots to effectively guide teams through persuasion and trust, rather than title, power, or clinical authority.
- Diagnose and navigate complex systems by analyzing a specific organizational bottleneck and executing a concrete change driven by a sharp understanding of stakeholders, healthcare finance, regulations, and policy.
- Communicate and negotiate across high-stakes settings by mastering executive presence, persuasion, and audience-tailored messaging for critical audiences.
- Increase and improve visible leadership by advancing the field of child psychiatry through strategic engagement with diverse systems-level stakeholders, including association governance, payors, policy makers, media, and entrepreneurs.
Deadline to apply: October 1, 2026
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The AACAP CLIMB program is supported by AACAP reserved funds and the T. Benton, MD, Leadership Fellows Fund.