Welcome to the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship. In collaboration with Dayton Children’s Hospital, our two-year fellowship provides broad, high-quality clinical training across the Dayton region.
The Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship strives to train excellent child and adolescent psychiatrists in clinical practice, psychotherapy, academic medicine, and research and scholarship. Fellows experience diverse clinical experiences throughout the fellowship and are well prepared for practice and boards.
Graduates practice in a variety of settings and levels of care including inpatient, partial hospitalization, and outpatient in children's hospitals, private practice and community mental health. The program has a special interest in preparing fellows to work with underserved populations including those with intellectual developmental disabilities. Our main partner is Dayton Children's Hospital, and we work with other community organizations and the Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
About the Program
Director: Kari Harper, M.D.
As a smaller program, we offer a close-knit, family-friendly culture with individualized mentorship and enthusiastic faculty. Our goal is to prepare fellows to become empathetic, compassionate, and clinically versatile child and adolescent psychiatrists who are equipped for diverse career paths in psychiatry.
A Broad Range of Clinical Experiences
Fellows train in diverse settings and work with children, adolescents, and families across the continuum of care. Core and elective experiences include:
- Inpatient child and adolescent psychiatry
- Outpatient psychiatry and longitudinal care
- Consultation-liaison psychiatry
- Partial hospitalization, including substantial exposure to dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)
- School-based psychiatry
- Integrated behavioral health and collaborative care
- Eating disorder assessment and treatment
- Juvenile Detention Center clinical experience
- Child psychiatry opportunities through our partnership with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
- Telepsychiatry with Intellectual and developmental disabilities
Commitment to Underserved and Neurodevelopmental Populations
A particular strength of our fellowship is training in the care of underserved populations, including children and adolescents with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Fellows have will participate in telepsychiatry services and gain experience providing thoughtful, developmentally informed psychiatric care for individuals and families with complex neurodevelopmental needs.
This emphasis builds on the longstanding strengths of the Wright State Psychiatry Residency Program in IDD care and helps fellows develop the skills needed to serve patients across a wide range of community and specialty settings.
Strong Psychotherapy Training
Psychotherapy is a central part of fellowship training. Building on the adult residency program’s established foundation in psychodynamic psychotherapy, fellows receive robust supervision and clinical experience in multiple modalities, including:
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)
- Play therapy
- Psychodynamic psychotherapy
- Additional individual, family, and supportive therapy approaches
Fellows are encouraged to develop a psychotherapy foundation that can be adapted to the developmental needs of children, adolescents and their families.
Teaching and Professional Development
Fellows have meaningful opportunities to teach and mentor medical students and psychiatry residents. Through clinical supervision, didactics, and collaborative learning, fellows can strengthen their skills as educators while contributing to the academic mission of Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine.
Our fellowship is designed to support each fellow’s professional goals while providing the clinical breadth, psychotherapy expertise, and mentorship needed for a fulfilling career in child and adolescent psychiatry.
Fellowship Mission Statement
- Our mission is to teach and study mental health, mental illness, and treatment in children, adolescents and transitional age youth while promoting the mental health of the Dayton and greater Miami Valley Region. We accomplish that mission through recruitment, education and scholarship.
- Recruitment: we recruit diverse fellows and faculty; partnering with community sites; encouraging investment in our community and in Ohio.
- Education: we provide excellent didactic education, clinical and psychotherapy experiences, and faculty supervision to medical students, residents and fellows and foster the development of our core and clinical faculty.
- Scholarship: we encourage and support research, quality improvement,and life-long learning through fellowship projects, faculty initiatives and journal club.
Resources
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Resources
- American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Autism and PDD Resources
- Autism Society of America
- Tourette Syndrome Association - Resources for Youth
- Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation