Mission Statement

The primary mission of the Child and Adolescent Program at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD) is to improve the lives of children and families through research, clinical service, training, and community outreach. The faculty, staff, and graduate students in this program are committed to improving the lives of children and families by conducting state-of-the-art research in several important and inter-related areas:  

1) Studies to help us understand the nature of mental health disorders affecting youth and families,

2) Research advancing our methods of assessing youth and families,

3) Clinical trials to help develop and evaluate effective treatments for childhood disorders (primarily anxiety, depression, and other related disorders), and

4) Studies to help us transport state-of-the-art treatments for youth and families to community settings such as schools and primary care.

We regularly integrate findings from our rich and varied research programs to improve our clinical services, and often have opportunities for those seeking care at our clinic to participate in our research activities.  We offer clinical services through the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD) that complement our research programs.  We provide diagnostic assessments and evidence-based treatment to hundreds of families whose youth are coping with a mental health issue such as anxiety or another related disorder.  

Our Child and Adolescent Program also boasts an active training program in which highly qualified graduate students in clinical psychology and related fields receive expert supervision and training in evidence-based practice. We adopt a model to training similar to that employed in top teaching hospitals in which trainees learn in the clinical setting under close supervision. In addition, we provide expert training to clinicians around the world to provide evidence-based intervention and prevention approaches in children’s mental health delivery.  

We also are dedicated to community outreach –investing time to communicate accurate information about children’s mental health to major stakeholders in the lives of children.  All of our faculty and staff regularly provide lectures and workshops at schools, hospitals, and other community agencies.  We are frequently interviewed by various news outlets to provide essential information about children’s mental health to the public.    In sum, all of our core roles—child mental health research, clinical service provision, clinical training, and community outreach—work together to put us at the forefront of the field in improving the lives of youth and families.

We invite you to explore our current research programs and our clinical services.