A novel partnership in psychiatric education.

OBJECTIVE

The authors describe a unique institutional partnership between an adult psychiatry training program and a K-12 school that focuses on enriching educational opportunities and improving outcomes at both institutions.

METHOD

Beginning with reciprocal consultations, the partnership has expanded to involve the students and faculty at both institutions. Feedback has confirmed that both residents in the training program and teachers at the school consider the exchanges highly beneficial.

RESULTS

A wide range of educational improvements has resulted. In the training program, these have included recurring exposure to and interactions with children and adolescents in normative educational environments and increased reflection about effective pedagogy. In the school, improvements have ranged from more rounded intervention strategies to teachers' increased sophistication about neurodevelopmental phenomena in a learning setting.

CONCLUSIONS

Collaboration between an adult psychiatry training program and a K-12 school can provide significant benefits not otherwise available to both institutions. The authors believe this partnership model is valuable and might be replicated in other settings where adult and/or child training programs can establish similar relationships with a school.