Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Overview

Identifying and diagnosing mental health conditions in children and adolescents is one of the toughest jobs in health care. Sometimes symptoms overlap with other conditions. Changed or disruptive behavior could signal a disorder - or a typical developmental stage. Younger children may not have the words to express their thoughts or feelings. Teens may not want to communicate at all. All too often, schools, courts, community health care providers, and other agencies may not have the resources to provide an appropriate evaluation.

The Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Program at Stony Brook University School of Medicine has built an international reputation based on meeting these needs. We provide expert assessment of childhood and adolescent mental illness — in many cases, second opinions — to patients from as far away as California and South America.

Stony Brook also provides the full spectrum of psychiatric and behavioral services — inpatient treatment, outpatient care, medical and behavioral management, and school programs to address the wide range of mental health conditions occurring in children today.

Inpatient Care

Stony Brook Children's Services
12N - Stony Brook University Hospital
Stony Brook, New York 11794

For physicians seeking information on admissions, call (631) 444-1251.
Check out our website at www.12north.org.

Outpatient Diagnostic Clinic

Our Team

• Judith A. Crowell, MD, Division Director
• Wilfred Farquharson IV, PhD, Director
• Lauren Spring, MD, Fellowship Training Director
• Gabrielle Carlson MD, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, President

Other key members of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry faculty team include:

• Kimberly Alba, PsyD (Outpatient)
• Anthony Anzalone, PhD (Outpatient)
• Darla Broberg, PhD, Clinical Director, Children's Inpatient Service (12 North)
• Adria Gerber, PsyD (Outpatient
• Amanda Gorecki, DO (Outpatient)
• Christopher Graffitti, NP (Outpatient)
• Michael Greenberg, LCSW (Outpatient)
• Saurabh Gupta, MD (Outpatient
• Maria Hensley-Spera, LCSW-R (Outpatient)
• Kimberly James, PhD (Outpatient
• Jennifer Keluskar, PhD (Outpatient)
• Jessica McCurdy, PhD (Outpatient)
• Veronica Murphy, MD (Outpatient)
• Allison Nahmias, PhD (Outpatient)
• Krishen Persaud, DO (Outpatient)
• Debra Reicher, PhD (Outpatient)
• Maged Soliman, MDChB (Outpatient)
• Lisa Steinberg, NP (Outpatient)
• James Swain, MD, PhD (Outpatient)
• Marianne Tateosian, DO (Outpatient)
• Angela Turner-Dougherty, PhD (Outpatient)
• Elizabeth Wexler, LCSW Children’s Inpatient Service (12 North)

Services

Stony Brook's renowned Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Services provides four major services: outpatient evaluation and treatment of children with psychiatric disorders; inpatient care at the only academic medical institution on Long Island to provide inpatient child psychiatry services; consultation to schools that serve children with severe emotional disability; psychiatric consultation to medically hospitalized children as needed.

A cornerstone of the Stony Brook program, our outpatient evaluations often are performed as second opinions for schools seeking detailed reports that will help the child obtain the appropriate school services. They sometimes are needed to advise in legal matters. And always, these evaluations and assessment help educate parents, guardians, and the child on the presence, nature and treatment of their condition. A routine evaluation begins with obtaining standardized ratings from parent and teacher, copies of past evaluations and hospital records if relevant, and an interview with the parent/caretaker and child. A detailed evaluation also includes a laboratory assessment of attention and impulsivity as well as a classroom observation.

Outpatient Services

Many of Stony Brook's services are available on an outpatient basis, including assessment, follow-up care, parent training, case management and therapeutic management. We phone discharged patients to maintain support and guidance during the transition from hospital to home. In addition, our staff is available for one-to-one therapy.

Inpatient Care

For children ages 5 through 12 with serious psychiatric disorders, we can provide 24-hour inpatient services in our 10-bed, locked unit. Children receive a comprehensive diagnostic evaluation, medications if necessary, and appropriate therapeutic interventions, which may include behavior management programs and therapeutic recreation along with educational services through the BOCES program. A core component of treatment is parent training to reinforce inpatient treatment, better manage the child, and give parents a new set of coping skills. The inpatient team includes a psychiatrist, Dr. Gartner, a psychologist, Dr. Broberg, nurses, a social worker and the teaching team.

Consultation Liaison Service

This provides high quality, thorough and timely psychiatric consultations to pediatric patients throughout Stony Brook Children's. Led by Dr. Crowell and staffed by psychiatrists on the faculty, the consultation service provides evaluation and assistance with the management of psychological conditions and psychiatric disorders occurring in medically ill children throughout the hospital such as complex medical/psychiatric diagnoses including acute stress reactions to medical conditions, self-injurious behaviors or suicidal attempt and ideation, acute decompensation from prior psychiatric or psychological status, procedural anxiety, depression and chronic pain. Assessment consists of talking to the families, outpatient healthcare providers and school counselors of children about their medical and psychological/psychiatric conditions, as well as collaborating with the pediatric team involved in their care.

School Program

Stony Brook Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has consulting agreements with Eastern Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) program which provides school services while the child is hospitalized. BOCES teachers help students maintain and develop their educational potential during hospitalization, create a routine, and develop new coping skills. The program is available to both regular and special education students. The BOCES team works closely with the school to assess the child's performance and ease the transition back to school. In addition, child and adolescent psychiatrists work in the Western Suffolk BOCES schools to provide psychiatric consultation within a student's normative functional environment. The doctors not only work as part of the school team, they also provide invaluable consultation to the community psychiatrists and other clinicians caring for these children.

Education

The Division maintains an accredited two-year fellowship Fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry directed by Judith A. Crowell, MD, with two fellows in each year. Our faculty also teaches residents and medical students from the Stony Brook School of Medicine and nurse trainees from the Stony Brook School of Nursing.

During their fellowship, fellows spend 6 months on the children's inpatient service, and 6 months rotating through several programs in the Board of Cooperative Educational Services elementary, junior high and high school. They begin to follow outpatients in the clinic. During their second year, fellows do a rotation on consultation liaison at Stony Brook Children's Hospital, as well as participating in comprehensive evaluations and taking on greater responsibility for outpatients. Elective time for scholarly activity is available in the second year.

Patient Resources

Members of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Division are actively involved in educating families and the community about psychiatric disorders and their management. We have worked with Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), Special Education Parents and Teachers Association (SEPTA), and other support and advocacy groups.

In addition, members of the Division continually reach out to community therapists, educators, and families by organizing educational programs on child and adolescent psychiatry topics such as bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, learning disorders and aggression, and many other areas.

Research and Education

As part of an academic medical institution, Stony Brook's Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Division participates in the teaching of tomorrow's professionals, as well as researching psychiatric disorders and their treatment. 

Current and upcoming clinical trials include studies on ADD and aggression, bipolar disorder and pediatric epilepsy. The division also is involved in longitudinal and other studies examining a variety of important research questions.

Dr. Gabrielle Carlson has been involved in two funded longitudinal studies. One project focuses on late teens and adults with a first episode of psychosis. The other study is following a community sample of preschool children to examine the effects of certain kinds of temperament in predicting future depressive disorder.

Dr. Judith Crowell is the principal investigator of a longitudinal study that will investigate the role of family factors and acute and chronic trauma and stress, including racism, on the development of metabolic syndrome (precursors to adult onset diabetes and heart disease). Based at Judge Baker Children's Center, Harvard Medical School, the project received a 5-year NIA funded grant in June 2009.

Dr. Deborah Weisbrot has been involved with the Lourie Center for Pediatric MS as their psychiatric consultant. In addition to in-depth clinical evaluations, there are ongoing studies of psychiatric aspects of pediatric multiple sclerosis. As an outgrowth of this research, Dr. Weisbrot has published one of the first papers describing psychiatric aspects of demyelinating disorders in children and adolescents. She is a long-standing member of the Physically Ill Child Committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Advances and Recognitions

Members of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry staff have been recipients of numerous awards and recognitions over the years.

Dr. Gabrielle Carlson, Dr. Judith Crowell, and Dr. Deborah Weisbrot have been cited multiple times on Castle Connelly's list of "New York's Best Doctors."

Dr. Gabrielle Carlson is the President of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP). Dr. Carlson is the recipient of numerous awards including the American Psychiatric Association’s Agnes Purcell McGavin Award for Prevention and its Blanche F. Ittleson Award for research in child and adolescent psychiatry, the New York Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s Hulse Award, the American Psychopathology Association’s Joseph Zubin Award and AACAP’s Virginia Q Anthony award for woman leadership. She has served as President of the International Society for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology (ISRCAP) and chaired the AACAP's Program Committee. Dr. Carlson won 2 awards from the American Psychiatric Association (APA), one for prevention of mental illness in children and the other for her work on bipolar disorder in children and adolescents. She also has received clinical recognition awards from the New York Council on Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the University of Missouri, Columbia.