Contact:
Mary Silver
Director, Communications
NYU Child Study Center
212-263-3652
E-mail: mary.silver@nyumc.org

Gov. Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, New York University Announce $200 Million Investment in Child Mental Health
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Creation of New York State Center of Excellence Will Ensure NYU Child Study Center’s Leadership in Child Psychiatry, Research

New York, NY, February 9, 2006 – New York Governor George Pataki, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York University President John Sexton today announced a $200 million investment in child mental health, including plans to build a brand-new, 120,000 square foot home for the NYU Child Study Center, resulting in the largest child and adolescent psychiatric treatment, research and training facility in the world.

Gov. Pataki also committed a $30 million state grant to create a New York State Center of Excellence at the Child Study Center, the first such center at a mental health facility. The Governor also announced that New York State is providing an additional $35 million to create a new state-of-the-art Rockland Children’s Psychiatric Center in Rockland County in partnership with the NYU Child Study Center, demonstrating a statewide commitment to the improvement of mental health services.

The new Child Study Center will take an integrated, scientific approach to revolutionize child and adolescent mental health in America.

The Child Study Center will be the first of its kind to make science the driving force behind this vital new initiative—attacking child mental disorders in much the same way the medical and scientific communities have attacked cancer.

Using a multidisciplinary approach, the Center will leverage the outstanding resources of the NYU community, specifically faculty at the NYU School of Medicine, the Steinhardt School of Education, the Center for Neural Science, the College and Graduate Faculties of Arts and Science, and the Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences, allowing leading child psychiatrists and psychologists, pediatricians, geneticists, mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists, along with educators and policymakers, to address this national epidemic in child psychiatric disorders collaboratively.

“Whether its education, health care or mental health services, children are our most precious resource and that is why we continue to make record investments in all of these areas,” Governor Pataki said. “This announcement today is more great news and further proof that here in New York we will do whatever it takes to ensure that our children have every opportunity to get a great start in life. I want to thank Mayor Bloomberg and New York University for their efforts to work with us and make this new facility a reality.”

“New York City is home to many of the leading medical, research and educational facilities in the world,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “The addition of the NYU Child Study Center and its focus on treatment programs for child and adolescent psychiatric conditions will serve as a perfect compliment to the City’s extraordinary research and training facilities, and our efforts to develop a commercial bioscience center with the East River Science Park. As the fourth-largest employer in New York City with over 18,600 employees in the five boroughs, we are proud of our strong partnership with New York University – one of the City’s great institutions.”

“The creation of this facility and the Center’s new vision for child mental health is made possible by $30 million from the State of New York, a property owned by New York University, an over $100 million capital campaign, New York State funding for new research faculty positions and new residency training positions, and New York State’s additional $35 million investment to build a twenty-first century Rockland Children’s Psychiatric Center in partnership with the Child Study Center. This initiative demonstrates the strong commitment of our university to work in partnership with the State to find new treatments and approaches for psychiatrically ill youth,” said John Sexton.

Robert M. Glickman, M.D., Dean of the NYU School of Medicine, said today that the new Child Study Center and Center of Excellence are outstanding programs. “This modern, state-of-the-art facility will allow NYU scientists to conduct groundbreaking research that will influence our understanding of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders and ultimately improve the way physicians treat their young patients.”

“Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg recognize the immense public health implications of the scarcity of child mental health services in the face of a national epidemic of mental illness starting in childhood. The development of newer and more effective treatments for mental disorders in children and adolescents must be given the kind of priority that providing safe drinking water was accorded over a century ago. Improving the mental health of our children in this and future generations will assure and enhance the productive potential of our youngest citizens, paying dividends for generations to come,” Sexton added. “The commitment to this critical venture between New York State and the New York University Child Study Center positions New York as the leader in child mental health.”

Plans for the innovative NYU Child Study Center include:

• Establishing new laboratories and programmatic initiatives, allowing for the recruitment of internationally renowned scientists to pursue cures, treatments and preventions.
• Housing 500 research faculty, trainees and staff that will work in 12 independent laboratories focusing on specific mental health and behavioral disorders.
• Enhancing and expanding the NYU Child Study Center’s work in the areas of Anxiety and Mood Disorders, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity (ADHD) and Behavior Disorders, Prevention Science, Pediatric Neuroscience, Tourette’s and Movement Disorders, Trauma and Stress, and Learning Disabilities.
• Establishing a comprehensive clinical and research Eating Disorders Program and a state-of-the-art Autism Center.
• Creating a lab school to model and demonstrate scientifically sound strategies and new approaches to address students at risk for violence and disorders of conduct within the public school system.

“The Center of Excellence will change the existing child mental health paradigm by developing more effective and efficient ways to prevent, identify, and treat mental illness,” said Harold S. Koplewicz, MD, founder and director of the Child Study Center. “The development of this facility will provide revolutionary new approaches to child mental health, and will have a transformative impact on the treatment of child psychiatric disorders similar to that of the Salk and Sabin vaccines on polio.”

Dr. Koplewicz also noted that 12 percent of Americans under the age of 18 have psychiatric disorders and that up to 70 percent of those children are never diagnosed and never receive treatment.

“These disorders rob children of the ability to learn, make and keep friends and enjoy life. The Child Study Center is committed to identifying and treating mental disorders in kids today and is building the science to do it even better tomorrow with the ever approaching goal of eventually being able to prevent these diseases,” Koplewicz affirmed.

“Child psychiatric disorders properly diagnosed and treated help kids stay in school and become healthy, productive, tax-paying citizens, instead of being plagued with substance abuse, academic failure, and potential incarceration,” Sexton said. “New York University is committed to developing research and programmatic initiatives to help children reach their full potential.”

Parent advocates, leading child mental health professionals, and community activists joined dignitaries from state and local government and New York University to applaud the creation of this new Child Study Center, which will open in three years.

The NYU Child Study Center is part of the NYU School of Medicine. For more information about the Child Study Center, please visit www.AboutOurKids.org.

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