Service Offered
Children and adolescents (up to age of 18 years) are provided outpatient, inpatient, preventive and emergency services. The outpatient and inpatient services are utilized by patients from all over India and also from countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Maldives, Cambodia, USA, UK etc. Multidisciplinary inputs from Departments of Clinical Psychology, Psychiatric Social Work, Neurology, Speech Pathology & Audiology and Psychiatric and Neurologic Rehabilitation are regularly provided both for outpatients and inpatients. Consultants & trainees from Clinical Psychology and Psychiatric Social Work form an integral part of the team. There is a great awareness that a multi-disciplinary core team with active inter departmental liaisons is essential for optimum delivery of care for the child and the family.
Details:
The Department offers services in 4 settings: outpatient, inpatient, emergency and preventive.
- Outpatient services: First-contact outpatient services are delivered on all days of the week. A separate first-contact Child and Adolescent Psychiatry OPD was started in the ground floor of the main OPD (G-13) building in August 2012. Prior to this the first-contact OP services were being delivered at the screening OPD building along with the adult patients of all the clinical departments at NIMHANS. The screening OPD functions on all days except Sunday. After first-contact evaluation, children and adolescents are followed up in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry OPD located in the ground floor of the main OPD building (CAP-200). This service is offered on all working days except Wednesdays and Sundays.
- Inpatient services: Inpatient services are offered at two inpatient facilities – Child Psychiatric Centre (CPC) and the Adolescent Psychiatry Centre (APC). The Child Psychiatry Centre has 27 general beds, 10 special room beds and 3 high intensity nursing care beds. This well-planned building has planned spaces for daytime activities. These include rooms for interview, play and family therapy, classroom activity, dining and cooking. Outdoor and indoor play areas and a T.V cum reading room are other facilities available. The Adolescent Psychiatry Centre (APC) has 8 general beds, 8 special room beds, 4 semi-private beds and 4 high intensity nursing care beds. In this ward too, there are specific spaces allocated for therapy, and interview. The ward also houses a gymnasium, activity rooms, study room, recreation room, and kitchen and dining hall.
- Emergency services: Children and adolescents who are brought to the NIMHANS emergency services are promptly evaluated by a duty team from the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. After the initial treatment inputs, appropriate follow-up care is provided.
- Preventive and Promotive services: CAP team is actively involved in preventive and promotive child and adolescent mental health activities at the NIMHANS Centre for Well-being (NCWB).
i) Swatantra Services – Specialized Service for Children in Need of Care and
Protection at NIMHANS
Timings: Every Wednesday 9:00 am to 1:00 pm
This service is for the children referred by state-run (and other) child care institutions, Child Welfare Committee/Juvenile Justice Board, and other vulnerable children in the community.
ii) Special Developmental Clinic
Timings: Every Wednesday 9:00 am to 1:00 pm
This service is for children with different kinds of developmental issues such as Learning difficulties/disabilities, Intellectual disability, Autism. More specialised and focused assessments and interventions are carried out, including extensive work with parents.
iii) Community Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service: A Collaborative
Project of NIMHANS and Department of Women and Child Development,
Govt of Karnataka
Community Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services project, seeks to address the gap in child and adolescent mental health services in the Indian context, wherein screening and early intervention and/or psychosocial care provision by non-specialists, exists to an extremely limited extent. Further details including a large repertoire of materials for child care service providers are available in the website http://www.nimhanschildproject.in .