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Training Pediatric Psychologists for Perinatal Behavioral Health Services in a Pediatric Hospital

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Abstract

Although pediatric hospitals specialize in providing care to children and adolescents, at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), our team has been providing behavioral health services for two unique parent populations—parents with a child in the Newborn Infant Intensive Care Unit and pregnant women carrying fetuses with specific birth defects and receiving prenatal care in the Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment. A new training program was developed to expand the scope of pediatric psychologists’ practice to include perinatal behavioral health services, specifically for these two unique parent populations served at CHOP. The program includes direct service provision for adult mental health concerns, as well as education and support to help families cope with the existing medical conditions. This article describes the training program and its implementation as a model of training for other pediatric hospitals. The roles of psychologists embedded in these units and hospital privileges are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Lydia Sit for her supervision, Dr. Deborah Kim and Dr. Sarah Mathews for observation opportunities in this training process and Shadiya Moss for assistance in manuscript preparation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Rhonda C. Boyd, Alexander M. Scharko, Joanna C. M. Cole, Tami D. Benton & Thomas J. Power

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Rhonda C. Boyd, Chavis A. Patterson, Tami D. Benton & Thomas J. Power

  3. Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Joanna C. M. Cole

  4. Division of Neonatology, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Chavis A. Patterson

  5. Department of Pediatrics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Thomas J. Power

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  1. Rhonda C. Boyd
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  2. Alexander M. Scharko
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  3. Joanna C. M. Cole
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  4. Chavis A. Patterson
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  5. Tami D. Benton
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Correspondence to Rhonda C. Boyd.

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Conflict of Interest

Rhonda Boyd, Alexander Scharko, Joanna Cole, Chavis Patterson, Tami Benton and Thomas Power declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Appendix: Behavioral Health Training for Parents in CFDT and N/IICU at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Skill Set Evaluation Form

Appendix: Behavioral Health Training for Parents in CFDT and N/IICU at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Skill Set Evaluation Form

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Boyd, R.C., Scharko, A.M., Cole, J.C.M. et al. Training Pediatric Psychologists for Perinatal Behavioral Health Services in a Pediatric Hospital. J Clin Psychol Med Settings 23, 99–111 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10880-015-9439-2

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