Child mental health services remain critically under-resourced across the globe, with significant disparities in access to care within and across geographic regions. 

The need for well-trained and skilled professionals, including child and adolescent psychiatrists (CAPs) and allied mental health professionals (AMHPs), is especially dire.  

This challenge is exacerbated by geopolitical conflicts, communicable diseases, hunger, poverty, and climate change.  

The advancement of virtual communication technologies, however, now provides powerful opportunities to connect educators and trainees globally.  

As an international leader, IACAPAP is committed to supporting the development of Child Mental Health educators and fostering the growth of trainees to meet the mental health care needs of children worldwide. 

Challenges facing efforts to further the development of global Child Mental Health training and education are many and include the following:  

1. Lack of sufficiently integrated interest-focused global networks connecting professionals across regions and programs.  
2. Tendency of the information flow to happen unidirectionally, from the high-resource (Global North) to the under-resourced (Global South) professionals.  
3. Inefficient use of available training and education resources due to duplication of efforts by groups working independently without awareness of each other’s efforts.  
    

One of the specific content areas that requires increased education and advocacy includes raising awareness of evidence-based pediatric psychopharmacology and how to apply this evidence in culturally and nationally appropriate contexts.  

Foster international pediatric psychopharmacology education and collaboration among child and adolescent psychiatry (CAPs) and allied mental health professions (AMHPs) practitioners and trainees to improve global child and adolescent mental health care. 

1. Develop the International Pediatric Psychopharmacology Special Interest Group (IPP SIG) for all IACAPAP members who would like to share resources and learn together within a global support network.   
2. Establish a global forum for discussion of resources, mutual interests, and challenges via bidirectional sharing of the evidence-based practices, practice-based evidence, and peer consultations. 
3. Encourage academic collaborations and publications to enhance child and adolescent psychiatry and allied professions training and leadership development globally. Facilitate academic productivity, particularly in low-resource regions, by welcoming academic collaborations, sharing research, curricula, clinical and educational best practices. 

Boris Lorberg, MD, will serve as the IPP SIG Coordinator. 

About the IPP SIG Coordinator 

• Boris Lorberg, MD, MBA
  Medical Director. Lawrence Community Behavioral Health Center. Beth Israel Lahey Health Behavioral Services.
  Associate Professor of Psychiatry. UMass Chan-Lahey. University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School.
• Coordinator's profile

This initiative aims to build an inclusive, collaborative network that can support and elevate pediatric psychopharmacology training and education globally, particularly in regions with limited resources. 

To become a member of IPP SIG, please email us at IPPsig.iacapap@gmail.com. 

Should you have other questions, please contact us at info@iacapap.org.