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The NYU Child Study Center Largest And Most Comprehensive Facility In Nation Opens

The NYU Child Study Center, the first and only such child mental health facility in the tri-state area and one of the largest and most comprehensive in the nation, today opens its new 20,000 square-foot state-of-the-art headquarters in Manhattan. Participating in today’s opening ceremony are U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Donna Shalala, Congressman Charles Rangel and New York Board of Education Chancellor Rudolph F. Crew. His Eminence John Cardinal O’Connor, the Archbishop of New York, and Rabbi Peter Rubinstein of Central Synagogue in New York City will perform a special blessing of the new site. “We are setting out to do for child mental health what Memorial Sloan- Kettering has done for cancer, what the Framingham study has done for heart disease, and what the Rusk Institute has done for rehabilitation,” said Dr. Robert M. Glickman, Dean of NYU School of Medicine. “The Child Study Center,” he continued, “is the first such model of its kind in the tri-state area--where scientific research, education and proactive community outreach coalesce in one dynamic mission--securing the mental health of the children of America.”

The NYU Child Study Center is the first center in the New York area to offer children and adolescents a complete range of psychiatric and support services in conjunction with leading-edge scientific research and education. The Child Study Center’s research initiatives advance understanding of the causes and treatments of child and adolescent mental disorders. Its premier scientists and clinicians put these findings into practice as the work with children in this unique family-centered environment. In collaboration with public and private school systems and other social organizations,, the Center also provided innovative preventive resources to families. These outreach programs translate scientific research into skills for parents and educators, and into the everyday practice of pediatricians and mental health professionals around the country.

“We live in a time when scientific knowledge of the brain is growing at an unprecedented rate. In child mental health, science has traditionally been far ahead of the clinical care brought to bear on children’s problems. Our goal is to apply that knowledge in earnest. At the Child Study Center we focus on science-based, research driven, state of the are care for children and adolescents,” said Harold S. Koplewicz, MD, Director of the Child Study Center.

Violent behavior risk identification and prevention is one research initiative with far-reaching clinical and societal implications. This is a series of prevention trials aims at reducing the multiple risk factors for children showing early signs of aggressive behavior. Currently being conducted by the Center’s Institute for Children at Risk, this violence prevention program for pre-schoolers studies three-and four-year-old children whose siblings are in jail. The study seeks to identify factors that could reduce the chances of these children following in the footsteps of their older brothers and sisters. This research hold vitally important learning for parents, educators, psychiatrists and psychologists-since prevention of aggressive behavior and conduct disorder in youth has strong implications for reducing teenage parenthood, reducing substance abuse and depression and preventing suicide.

A major component of the Center’s mission involves the difficult challenge of reaching populations in need with research-based interventions. ParentCorps is a pioneering national public service delivery strategy developed by the Child Study Center. ParentCorps is an educational outreach program that works with selected community organizations to identify, train and support teams of highly accessible and visible parent leaders who will conduct parenting skill groups, coordinate workshops, staff parenting helplines and facilitate referrals to community resources. Research shows that parenting is one of the key predictors of problems in youth -including delinquency, antisocial behavior, substance abuse, depression, academic underachievement, suicide and early pregnancy. ParentCorps reaches out to communities in need, training the trainers to enhance child rearing skills, improving parent-teacher communication, increasing parent involvement in schools, and generally fostering productive and successful families, schools and communities.

“We know when it comes to health issues as complex as child psychiatry, theories not anchored in the facts are vulnerable to prevailing winds. And to get to the facts we need solid research. In five studies funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health, fewer than 20 percent of children at risk for mental disorders were spotted by their primary care providers as needing help. Research also tells us that mental health problems in children, left untreated, can destroy their chances to succeed in school, in society an din in life. The NYU Child Study Center is working to change that situation, locally and nationally-through its cutting edge research, clinical resources, and community outreach; it is changing the face of child mental health in America,: said Dr. Donna Shalala, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Rudolph Crew, New York City Board of Education Chancellor, noted, “New York City public school educators face the daily challenge of identifying and helping children with learning problems, attention deficit disorder, depression, teenage pregnancy, and substance abuse. Healthy children and healthy parenting contribute enormously to healthy schools and communities.

The Board of Education welcomes the opening of this important Center dedicated to helping children and adolescents learn and grow into productive members of society.” “NYU is investing in the nation’s children through the Child Study Center; we believe that if it is good for children, it is good for America,” said Harold S. Koplewicz, MD.

NYU Child Study Center is part of the New York University School of Medicine, one of the nation’s premier biomedical research and education resources. Founded in 1841, the School has maintained the highest standard in research and medical education for over 155 years. It enjoys a robust reputation among the medical community in New York City and beyond. Ranked among the top 25 medical schools in the nation for the past five consecutive years by U.S. News & World Report, The School has trained several generations of nationally- recognized physicians in its tradition of compassionate, state-of-the-art patient care. Graduates are trained to put the highest standard of medicine and medical research to work for the greater good. Nowhere is this commitment to public health and public service demonstrated more clearly than through the School’s 151-year affiliation with Bellevue Hospital, where care is provided largely by NYU physicians.

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