Sections
Collaborating With Primary Care: Introduction | Understanding the Primary Care Clinic Setting | Approaches to Education and Improving Skills of the Primary
Care Physician | Collaborative Care | A Collaborative Model | Core Principles of Collaborative Care in the Primary
Care Setting | Components of Collaborative Care in the Primary Care
Setting | Summary Points | References
Excerpt
Child and adolescent psychiatrists are in great
demand in every community throughout the United States as the number
of children and adolescents requiring access to care for mental
health needs continues to increase, while the number of child and
adolescent psychiatrists practicing in the United States has grown
little in the last two decades. A recent report identifies great
disparity across the United States of child psychiatrists available,
with rural and poor populations clearly having the greatest shortage
and therefore the worst access to care (Thomas and Holzer 2006). The shortage of child mental health professionals
is a likely contributing factor to the Surgeon General's
estimate that only 20% of the children with a mental illness obtain
any care at all (U.S. Public Health Service 2000).