Watch the Webinar (WMV)

The pediatric practice is the trusted medical home for children, teenagers and their families, and pediatricians are uniquely situated to confront the challenges of identifying and caring for children and teens with mental health problems. But, what do pediatricians need to meet these challenges? How can they prepare themselves and their practices to provide effective mental health care? This webinar focused on pediatricians’ pivotal roles in improving their patients’ mental health care and offered practical tools and resources to assist in the mental health care of teens in their practices.

Presentation Objectives:

• Discuss the unique opportunities and challenges primary care pediatricians face in identifying and addressing the mental health problems of children and teens;

• Describe core skills requisite to providing pediatric mental health care;

• Describe the collaborative relationships and practice preparations that contribute to a strong infrastructure for pediatric mental health care; and

• Access practical tools and resources applicable to the mental health care of teens in their practice.

Speaker Bios:

Jane Meschan Foy, MD, FAAP
Dr. Foy is professor of pediatrics and coordinator of the Integrated Primary Care Mental Health (MH) Program for the Northwest Area Health Education Center at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. From 1999-2003 she chaired the Task Force on MH for the North Carolina Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), helping to negotiate Medicaid policies that pay primary care physicians for the MH care they provide and facilitate their access to MH specialists. She has since been part of multiple North Carolina initiatives to integrate MH care into primary care settings. From 2004-2010 she chaired the AAP Task Force on Mental Health.

Leslie McGuire, MSW
Leslie McGuire is the Deputy Executive Director of the TeenScreen National Center for Mental Health Checkups at Columbia University. Leslie began her career at Columbia in 1998 as the coordinator of a school-based screening initiative in the New York City school system. Since that time, Leslie has spearheaded the National Center’s national programs in primary care, school, and community-based settings, which now span over 1,300 sites and strive to make mental health checkups accessible to all American teens.

John Genrich, MD, FAAP
Dr. Genrich is TeenScreen’s physician advisor and a pediatrician at Cherry Creek Pediatrics in Denver, Colorado. In his role at TeenScreen, Dr. Genrich liaises with primary care providers across the U.S. to offer guidance on screening adolescents for mental health problems during routine primary care checkups. He has partnered with Kaiser Permanente – Southern Colorado, ValueOptions, and the TeenScreen National Center to work toward the expansion of mental health checkups in his group’s practice, other parts of Colorado, and throughout the United States.