City Hospital System Is Expanding Children’s Mental Health Programs
Recognizing that negative childhood experiences can affect a person’s health long into adulthood, New York City’s public hospital system is expanding its mental health programs for children and adolescents.
The programs, which NYC Health & Hospitals plans to announce on Wednesday, are designed to address the challenges facing many of the hospital system’s young patients, such as poverty, violence and substance abuse — circumstances that doctors said make children more likely to need mental health treatment but less likely to get it.
The programs follow the increasingly popular “integrated care” model, which aims to minimize the bouncing of patients between physical health doctors, psychiatrists and community resources. Instead, previously isolated services are brought into tandem. . .