Pediatric Mental Health Training for Residency Programs
Resident Education in Anxiety, Depression and Suicidality (READS) gives residency faculty the skills, confidence, and turnkey tools to teach evidence-based assessment and treatment of anxiety, depression, and suicidality to their residents.
Join the Notification ListWHO IT’S FOR
Designed for the Faculty Shaping Residency Mental Health Training
READS is built for pediatric residency core faculty, child and adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, and any clinician responsible for resident mental health education. If you shape how the next generation of clinicians learns to care for children’s mental health, READS is for you.
Most pediatric residents graduate without adequate training in mental health. READS changes that by equipping residency faculty with the skills, confidence, and ready-to-use teaching materials to deliver high-quality mental health education to their residents.
This faculty development program focuses on evidence-based assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of anxiety, depression, and suicidality in children and adolescents. Faculty leave not just better trained themselves, but prepared to teach.
The program includes three components:
10 hours of live, expert-led training
delivered virtually across two focused half-day sessions.
A complete, turnkey teaching
toolkit
everything faculty need to begin teaching immediately, including:
- PowerPoint slides for use with residents
- Video recordings of READS training sessions
- Public domain rating scales for anxiety, depression, and suicide risk
- Handouts for residents — diagnosis, treatment, and clinical algorithms
- Dosing guides and medication cards
- Handouts for families and caregivers
Four follow-up implementation sessions
live group calls after the training to help faculty:
- Support implementation with their residents
- Troubleshoot teaching challenges
- Deepen clinical knowledge
- Prepare to confidently answer resident questions
Course dates
Join the notification list to be alerted as soon as new dates are available.
Join the Notification ListHear from READS participants
Hear from the educators who have completed READS and brought transformative mental health training into their residency programs.
“Bringing together a group of motivated academic pediatricians to discuss the importance of teaching behavioral health to residents is such a gift from REACH. We need to tackle this issue as a team and share resources and strategies.”
— Catherine Kent, MD
Pediatrician, Portland, OR
Having the ongoing training and being able to talk to your peers AND have some support from instructors really did help with confidence building. You always question yourself and whether you’re doing the right thing… but when you see improvement, especially working with families and children, it reaffirms that you’re on the right track.
Kristin Mason, LCMHC, MSW, ESMHL
Vermont
Participants earn up to 13.75 CME credits
CME Accreditation
In support of improving patient care, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and The REACH Institute are jointly accredited by the ACCME, ACPE, and ANCC to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
AMA Credit Designation
This live activity is designated for a maximum of 13.75 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim credit commensurate with their participation.
READS Questions Answered
Everything residency faculty and program directors need to know
about READS — how it works, who it’s for, and how to get started.
The Parent Empowerment Program (PEP) is a REACH training designed for family peer advocates — parents and caregivers of children with mental health challenges who support other families in similar situations. PEP equips participants with clinical knowledge, advocacy skills, and practical tools to help families get the care their children need and deserve.
PEP is for parents and caregivers of children with mental health conditions who work in a peer advocate role — supporting other families navigating diagnosis, treatment, and systems like healthcare and schools. PEP is typically organized by healthcare systems, school districts, or community organizations that want to strengthen family advocacy in their community.
PEP covers the critical knowledge and skills peer advocates need — including problem-identification and priority-setting, engagement, listening and boundary-setting, group management, mental health evaluation, diagnosis and treatment, the mental healthcare system, and school systems and special education options. Participants also receive a comprehensive family empowerment manual and ready-to-use materials.
PEP consists of two components: a five-day interactive seminar, followed by 12 follow-up consultation calls held twice a week over six months. The full program is designed to build knowledge during the seminar and reinforce implementation through sustained consultation support over time.
PEP is delivered to groups of 15 or more and is organized through REACH’s group training infrastructure. Healthcare systems, school systems, and community organizations can schedule and host a PEP training for their community. Contact REACH’s group training team to discuss scheduling and delivery format.
Yes. REACH offers specialized PEP programs tailored for child welfare and juvenile justice settings — designed to help parents and staff work together to address the mental health needs of children involved in those systems. Specialized tracks are available as part of group training arrangements and can be customized to your organization’s needs.
All PEP participants receive a high-quality family empowerment manual and supporting materials — practical, ready-to-use resources that help peer advocates apply their learning and support other families with confidence.
Visit REACH’s Group Training page to learn more about scheduling a PEP for your group. PEP is available for groups of 15 or more and can be organized by healthcare systems, schools, and community organizations. Our team will work with you to find the right format and timeline.
Yes. Join the PEP waitlist to be notified when new training dates or group opportunities become available. You can sign up directly on this page.
Still Have Questions?
Our team is ready to help you find the right training solution for your organization and those you serve.
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Helping African-American children with mental health issues
Last week I saw two children, both African American, who were having suicidal thoughts. In neither case did the child or the parents come in asking for mental health support. One, a 13-year-old girl I’ll call Simone, wrote on her PHQ-9 depression screener that she had attempted suicide. In our interview, she revealed that she had had sex with a man she met online and that she had been cutting herself. Yet the reason she and her parents came in was an ADHD medication check! Pediatric primary care providers (PCPs) need to realize that African-American families may not seek help for mental health issues. The reasons for the lack of disclosure are rooted in the stigma around mental health in the African-American community. The stigma, in turn, is rooted in the trauma associated with being Black in America.
New treatments for ADHD
Newer treatments approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for pediatric patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) include two medications that address some of the common issues families have with standard stimulant treatments. Another development is use of devices to manage ADHD symptoms.
Helping families deal with holiday stress
“In some ways the holidays this year will be harder than last year for many people,” said Deborah Buccino, MD, pediatrician and REACH board member. “Earlier, we had pretty clear-cut rules about what you could and could not do safely. This year, we have a lot more gray areas.”
8 Tips for Working with Mental Health Therapists
Many patients who have mental health conditions need talk therapy in addition to the treatment you provide as the pediatric primary care provider (PCP). If you practice in an area where therapists are available, we hope you have developed referral relationships, as you learned in your REACH training. You may also see patients who are already working with a therapist. In either case, the communication between you and the therapist makes a huge difference in the quality of care the two of you provide. To learn how PCPs and therapists can collaborate to improve the mental health of children and adolescents, we talked with clinical psychologist Kevin Stark, PhD, a founder of The REACH Institute’s CATIE program, and pediatrician Hilary Bowers, MD, director of behavioral and mental health services at Children’s Primary Care Medical Group, a large pediatric practice in San Diego and Riverside counties in California.
Getting through to difficult patients and families
It’s 10:30 Monday morning, and you’re 45 minutes behind. Earlier, you had to confront a receptionist about coming in late again. You have to get out today by 4:30 so you can get to your daughter’s softball game. Beating under all this stress is worry about your mom, who has been diagnosed with stage 2B breast cancer.
Cross-titrating psychiatric medications
If you struggle with titrating psychiatric medications for your pediatric patients, you are not alone. Even for some alumni of the REACH program Patient-Centered Mental Health in Pediatric Primary Care, lack of comfort with psychiatric medications can hamper effective treatment. What does it take to dose and cross-titrate effectively? We asked two REACH faculty members: Peter S. Jensen, MD, REACH founder, and Amy Kryder, MD, education lead of the statewide REACH program in Virginia.
7 ways to support LGBTQIA+ youth
In a recent national survey, 46% of young LGBTQIA+ respondents said that they wanted counseling for psychological or emotional health issues and couldn’t get it. As a pediatric primary care provider (PCP), you may be well aware of the challenges your LBGTQIA+ patients face. To help you help them, we gathered suggestions from two experts, both of whom were panelists in our May webinar on supporting LGBTQIA+ youth: • Andersen Guske, nonbinary 22-year-old LGBTQIA+ advocate • Amy Dryer, MD, pediatrician and REACH faculty member Together, they offered 7 suggestions.
Helping children who have lost a parent
More than 40,000 children have lost a parent due to COVID-19. Black children, who constitute 14% of children in the US, are 20% of those who have lost a parent. Chances are good, then, that some of your patients have been through one of the most significant losses they will experience in their whole lives. The support they receive now to grieve in a healthy way can make the difference between their ability to thrive and their descent into adverse outcomes ranging from school failure to death by suicide.
Helping AAPI patients cope with racism
Discrimination and hate crimes against people of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) descent have risen during the COVID-19 pandemic. You may be wondering how you can help your AAPI patients cope with feelings that arise from experiences of racism.
Back to school for special populations
Although some schools have been open in person for months, some larger districts are just beginning to welcome students back on campus. Children, families, educators, and medical professionals have mixed feelings. To help you support different patient populations as they return to school, we talked to Jennifer Walton, MD, MPH, a co-author of a call for an “URGENT Coordinated Effort to Re-Open Schools” by the National Medical Association (NMA). Dr. Walton is chair of the NMA’s Pediatric Section, an assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at The Ohio State University, and a developmental behavioral pediatrician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
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