Vienna (OTS) – The international child and adolescent psychiatric association IACAPAP has proclaimed April 23rd annually as World Infant, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Day (WICAMHD). In this context, it is important to us as ÖGKJP to point out that increased efforts are still needed on many levels to strengthen the mental health of children and young people in Austria. In addition to the urgent need to expand preventative offerings, it is necessary to provide low-threshold help offers in several formats and to link the low-threshold area with help from professional helpers. Offers of help from psychotherapists and child and adolescent psychiatrists must also be funded by health insurance funds. Especially in the area of child and adolescent psychiatry, the aim must be to strengthen the further expansion of the subject and care through various measures:
- Training initiative to recruit specialists in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapeutic medicine: comprehensive financial support for additional training in the field of psychotherapeutic medicine and support for the states in creating new training capacities
- Expansion of child and adolescent psychiatric inpatient capacities in order to achieve the bed ratio provided for in the Health Austria structure plan for the subject of child and adolescent psychiatry
- Expansion of care capacities within the framework of outpatient clinics and health insurance-financed child and adolescent psychiatric treatment places in the private sector
- Implementation of funded training positions in private teaching practice in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapeutic medicine
- Nationwide implementation of new treatment models such as home treatment
- Creation of common structures at the interface between the departments of health, education, justice, families and the economy
- Possibility of mutual recognition of training periods in the subjects of child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapeutic medicine and psychiatry and psychotherapeutic medicine in order to enable dual specialists to practice their profession more quickly.
Questions & Contact:
Univ.Prof.Dr. Paul Plener, MHBA
Head of the University Clinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Medical University of Vienna, University Hospital AKH
paul.plener@meduniwien.ac.at
T: +43 (0)1 40400 – 30115
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