Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Residency
The mission of the University of Colorado Denver (UCD) Division of Child Psychiatry and The Children's Hospital Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences is to improve the mental, physical, and emotional 
health of children, adolescents, and their families through the provision of high quality, coordinated programs of patient care, research, education, and advocacy. In partnership with the community, we will enhance our position as a national leader in child psychiatry and behavioral health sciences.
The child and adolescent residency training program is conducted under the auspices of the Department of Psychiatry, Division of Child an Adolescent Psychiatry of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, with direct funding support from the State of Colorado, University of Colorado Hospital (UCH), The Children’s Hospital of Denver (TCH), Colorado Mental Health Institute at Ft. Logan (CMHIFt.L), and the Denver Health Medical Center (DHMC). The program is accredited for residency training by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Residency Review Committee (RRC) for Psychiatry. At the conclusion of training child psychiatry residents have received a well rounded education which prepares them to serve as leaders in their career fields of interest, academic/research, private practice and community based care entities.
Overview of the Training Program
The two-year training program in child & adolescent psychiatry at UCD is comprehensive, involving: consultation, diagnostic evaluation, and treatment of children from birth to 18 years and their parents. The settings include an outpatient clinic, inpatient units for disturbed children and adolescents, and a rich consultation/liaison service set within The Children’s Hospital, one of the top five children’s hospitals in the country. Supervision is offered in intensive individual psychotherapies, planned short-term therapy, crisis intervention, infant psychiatry, and parent, family, group, psychopharmacologic, and other therapeutic modalities. In the second year of the training program, significant time is set aside weekly for individualized educational electives.
The
Division offers training programs for general psychiatry residents, medical students, psychologists, social workers, pediatricians, nurses, and other categories of students. It utilizes resources of the Department of Psychiatry, the Department of Pediatrics and other departments of the Health Sciences Center. The faculty and staff of the Division are actively involved in a number of research studies in which child psychiatry residents and other trainees can participate. Arrangements for full training in child psychoanalysis can be made through affiliated psychoanalytic institutes.
Psychiatry residents traditionally are selected by the child and adolescent psychiatry program selection committee for ranking within the National Resident Match Program (NRMP) for admission at the conclusion of the postgraduate third or fourth year. The two year training program in child an adolescent psychiatry is a comprehensive program involving consultation, diagnostic evaluation, treatment, and systems based practice collaboration, of children from birth to 18 years, their parents/caregivers and families.
A variety of clinical settings are employed to allow the resident to gain competency in all six areas of competency. Clinical settings include an outpatient clinic, psychiatric day hospital settings for traumatized preschool children, developmentally disabled children, mentally ill children and medically ill children with co morbid mental illness; intensive patient experiences or child and adolescent inpatient units and a residential treatment setting and consultation liaison programming in pediatric inpatient, pediatric outpatient, and systems of care sites in school, community, mental health and outpatient setting, providing services to children involved in child welfare, developmental disabilities, and juvenile justice. Approximately a day weekly is devoted each year to an intensive curriculum encompassing developmental, diagnostic, treatment, administrative, ethical, and research topics essential to an effective practice of child and adolescent psychiatry.
