Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

The Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry serves as a major teaching and research site for students, psychology interns, postdoctoral fellows, psychiatry residents and child and adolescent psychiatry fellows. It provides preventive and therapeutic mental health services for children and adolescents through inpatient, day, ambulatory and community programs. At the University of Maryland Medical Center campus, the Division has a 10 bed child inpatient unit, child day hospital, consultation liaison service and outpatient child and adolescent clinics (including a trauma specialty clinic). The Division also has an outpatient center for infant psychiatry and a school mental health program based in Baltimore City public schools. The Division faculty represents the fields of child and adolescent psychiatry, clinical and experimental psychology, social work and nursing. Dr. David Pruitt, our division director, has served as a past president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Supervision and teaching are provided by an interdisciplinary faculty who represent psychodynamic, biological, and behavioral points of view. Research faculty in the Division with expertise in the fields of neuroscience, epidemiology, psychopharmacology and mental health services are available for consultation. 

Special areas of excellence are infant psychiatry (Center for Infant Study, Secure Starts Clinic for children under 5 years) and forensic psychiatry (Court Medical Services of Baltimore City, juvenile justice centers, and a forensic unit at Spring Grove Hospital). The School Mental Health Program is also nationally recognized as a leader in developing school mental health services. As well as providing services in 32 public schools in Baltimore and housing a research program, the program includes the only HRSA-funded Center in the US for resources and consultation to institutions wanting to initiate or expand school-based services. The Division also includes an NIH funded research program investigating metabolic and other side effects of anti-psychotic medication use in children and adolescents. While based in the Division, this program collaborates with experts in endocrinology, nutrition, and cardiology
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