Professionals in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry provide
state-of-the art psychological services, public education and advocacy. The
department's mission includes providing national leadership in the education of
health care professionals and advancing knowledge through research.
Children of all ages, and from every socioeconomic background, are treated
for a wide variety of problems including adjustment disorders, psychophysiologic
disorders, psychoses, affective disorders, developmental delays, externalizing
disorders, and learning disabilities.
The department is staffed by a multi-disciplinary group of 50 professionals,
including representatives from milieu therapy, recreational therapy, nursing,
psychiatry, psychology, social work, clinical education and speech pathology.
The department is organized into the following four services:
- Outpatient Services—provides assessment
services and short- and long-term treatment for a wide variety of patients
ages two through sixteen.
- Inpatient Psychiatry —designed to
provide short-term acute care for psychiatric patients between four and seventeen years
of age who cannot be maintained in outpatient settings.
- Partial Hospitalization—serves a
similar, but less acute, population for a somewhat longer treatment period.
The partial hospitalization program has a strong family emphasis.
- Intake and Consult Services—performs a triage
service for all intakes for the department. It also includes all emergency
room consultations as well as medical and surgical services at Children's
Memorial. This service constitutes the bulk of the interns' pediatric
psychology experience. Patients are of varying ethnic and racial backgrounds
and exhibit psychiatric disorders ranging from adjustment disorders to more
serious disorders such as childhood schizophrenia, autism, and severe
affective disturbance.
Children's Memorial is located minutes from downtown Chicago on the mid-north
side, in one of the city's most attractive neighborhoods. A short stroll away is
Lincoln Park with acres of walking paths, bikeways, tennis courts, picnic
grounds, a famous zoo and conservatory, boat harbors, miles of beaches, lagoons
for fishing or skating, hills for sledding, and trails for cross-country skiing.
Surrounding the hospital are private homes on tree-lined streets, modest
apartments in lovely-renovated buildings, and luxurious high-rises overlooking
Lake Michigan. The streets around the hospital are dotted with restaurants to
suit every taste and budget, community theaters, and shops of all kinds.
Chicago is one of the nation's leading medical, educational and cultural
centers. All the resources of metropolitan Chicago are conveniently reached from
Children's Memorial Hospital by public transportation or private automobile.