RESEARCH TRAINING IN CHILD PSYCHOPATHOLOGY & TREATMENT

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An institutional post-doctoral training program in the area of child psychopathology and treatment is proposed. The program will focus on causes, manifestations and treatments of major psychiatric disorders of children and adolescents and will serve to address the shortage of well- trained clinical researchers in this field. The six program faculty in the proposed training program have appointments in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. Facilities used for training will include the Division, located in the Children's Center and the Kennedy Krieger Institute for Developmental Disorders, located across the street from the Children's Center. An established funded research portfolio, an infrastructure which promotes and supports research, and faculty with a record of successfully training clinical researchers are already in place. The initiation of an NIH-funded institutional training program would provide the structure to formalize and enhance these activities. The proposed training program includes 4 postdoctoral positions per year for child psychiatrists or PhD.'s with clinical research interest in child psychopathology and treatment. Training duration is 2 years with an optional third year, primarily for M.D.'s requiring more extensive research training. Training consists of: (1) core course work to ensure a basic understanding of the principles of research methods, design, and statistics, (2) supervised clinical research in collaboration with a primary mentor and (3) participation in seminars and meetings including a weekly seminar involving all trainees and program faculty and focussed on the methods of conducting clinical research studies (i.e., how to choose an area of research, skills for critical review of the literature, how to identify and refine an research project idea, and how to write a research proposal). It is the goal of the training program that each trainee will present results from his/her research at major, national scientific meetings and be able to succeed subsequently as independent clinical researchers in child psychopathology and treatment.