Children’s Hospital Los Angeles’ (CHLA) Division of General Pediatrics has been awarded a five-year $2.5 million Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grant in support of clinical training and research designed to address the growing mental health crisis among children and youth, according to Newswise.
Called the Community-Partnered Pediatric Residency Training in Mental and Behavioral Health, the project is designed to train up to 190 CHLA pediatric residents in the primary care setting in mental and behavioral health care, says Christine Mirzaian, MD, Principal Investigator and Project Director of the grant.
“By improving the infrastructure for mental and behavioral health problems so they may be addressed immediately in the primary care setting, we anticipate that children, adolescents and young adults will benefit greatly from this program,” Dr. Mirzaian says, explaining that the initiative is a response to a lack of pediatric mental health services and the haunting number of teenagers dying from substance use daily.
Home to one of the largest pediatrician training programs in the United States, CHLA is the only freestanding children’s hospital included among the 24 grant recipients nationwide and the only hospital in Los Angeles County awarded. The grant is funded by HRSA as part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Read more.
