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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

Redesigning Access to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Care: A Statewide Public Health Approach through the New Jersey Pediatric Psychiatry Collaborative (NJPPC)

Reimagining access to child and adolescent mental health care: a statewide public health approach through the new jersey pediatric psychiatry collaborative (njppc)

A statewide collaborative care model that embeds child and adolescent psychiatric expertise in primary care has reduced delays in access to psychiatric care and reliance on emergency departments.

The presentation aims to address the child and adolescent mental health treatment gap arising from workforce shortages, delayed recognition, and fragmented care pathways through a public health–oriented collaborative care model. It notes that these gaps create inequities across gender, age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, disproportionately affecting children exposed to poverty, migration-related stress, and trauma. The New Jersey Pediatric Psychiatry Collaborative (NJPPC) operates as a statewide system encompassing urban, suburban, and rural communities; multidisciplinary teams of child and adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health clinicians, and care coordinators embed psychiatric expertise in primary care settings that serve as a common point of access. The model prioritizes developmentally informed screening and intervention from infancy through early adulthood, the inclusion of underserved groups, culturally responsive consultation, and care coordination; community linkages address the social and cultural determinants of mental health. The program has expanded from a regional pilot into a large-scale population health platform serving thousands of children each year. Reported outcomes include reduced delays in access to psychiatric care, earlier intervention, strengthened primary care capacity, and reduced reliance on emergency departments. The presentation argues that embedding mental health care in primary care in accordance with public health principles can advance equity, inclusion, developmental continuity, and cross-cultural responsiveness, and that this structure offers a framework transferable to other countries.

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