Pediatrics – Developmental & Behavioral

Services

Specialty Clinics at BMC:

• Child Protection Team (CPT):  CPT provides consultation, training and direct evaluative services in cases of suspected child abuse or neglect.  Services include: social work and medical consultation by telephone on suspected cases of child abuse and neglect 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; medical clinic services for abused or neglected children; data collection and review of all reports of suspected abuse/neglect filed by BMC providers; and training/education to health providers in the hospital and community.  For more information please call 617.414.3663.
  
  
• Comprehensive Care Program (CCP): CCP provides primary pediatric care to children with significant developmental disabilities and/or complex medical needs. CCP provides its families with a team approach to their child's care. This team includes physicians, nurse practitioners, a social worker and nurses. Family support is a key component to the program. Additionally, during their primary care visit patients also can see a neurologist, pulmonologist, nutritionist, gastroenterologist and/or a pediatric endocrinologist. This "one stop shopping model" of care is very efficient and promotes communication between all members of the child's team. For more information call 617.414.4773.
  
  
• Developmental Assessment Clinic (DAC): The Developmental Assessment Clinic serves children ages birth to 7 years with a wide variety of developmental issues including developmental language delay, attentional and behavioral problems and developmental disabilities. It is primarily a referral assessment clinic with some on-going care for relevant issues. For a referral to this clinic, please call 617.414.4235.
  
  
• Family Support Assessment Clinic:  When a family faces a dramatic change, perhaps due to an illness, a difficult diagnosis, community violence, a death of a family member, an impending separation or divorce, or frankly, any difficult adjustment, children are affected in many ways. The clinic provides consultative psychoeducational support for caregivers to help support their children through this process. For a referral to this clinic, please call 617.414.3668.
  
  
• Grow Clinic: The Grow Clinic for Children is an outpatient subspecialty clinic at Boston Medical Center, started in 1984 to provide comprehensive specialty medical, nutritional and social services and dietary assistance to children from the Greater Boston Area referred with Failure To Thrive symptoms. For appointments or a referral to this clinic, please call 617.414.5254.
  
  
• NICU Follow-Up Clinic: This multidisciplinary clinic provides comprehensive support via developmental and behavioral pediatrics, occupational therapy and nutrition. Routinely they see children discharged from BMC at approximately 4 months corrected gestational age or sooner for specific issues to support and track their development in the critical first year of life. To make an appointment, please call 617.414.3668.
  
  
• Pediatric Assessment of Communication Clinic (PAC): The Pediatric Assessment of Communication Clinic evaluates children of all ages.  Children are referred to PAC by their pediatric providers when there are questions or concerns about a child's development, especially in the areas of communication and behavior.  Examples of common concerns are:
  
  
  • A child whose language development and communication skills are very delayed compared to other children his/her age.
  • A child with difficult or unusual behaviors at school or at home.
  • A child with a question of an Autism Spectrum Disorder.
    
    

 For a referral to this clinic, please call 617.414.4235.

• School Achievement Clinic (SAC): The School Achievement Clinic is a consultative clinic for children 7-18 years of age with a wide variety of school challenges including ADHD, learning disabilities and school failure. The clinic staff is multidisciplinary consisting of developmental and behavioral pediatricians and neuropsychologists. The initial visit is an interview with the parent/caretakers to assess the learning issue. The second visit is an assessment with the child. The final visit is an appointment with the family to discuss diagnosis and recommendations. For a referral to this clinic, please call 617.414.3668.

Local and National Child Development Programs:

• Child Witness to Violence Project is a counseling, advocacy and outreach project that focuses on the growing number of young children who are hidden victims of violence: children who are bystanders to community and domestic violence. The project began in 1992 and currently counsels over 200 children and their families each year, in addition to implementing both national and state-focused training for health care professionals, police, educators and many other social service professionals who confront issues of children witnessing violence. For appointments and information, please call 617.414.4244.
  
  
• The Good Grief Program provides training, consultation and crisis intervention in the area of children’s bereavement. Sibling bereavement, the multiple losses encompassing HIV/AIDS, developmental and physical disabilities, incarceration of a parent, neonatal loss, birth defects, cancer, chronic illness of a family member and the multiple losses of foster care are but a few of the topics visited by our local and national trainings. For more information, please call 617.414.4005.
  
  
• Healthy Steps For Young Children: Healthy Steps is a national initiative that focuses on the importance of the first three years of life. Healthy Steps emphasizes a close relationship between health care professionals and parents in addressing the physical, emotional and intellectual growth and development of children from birth to age three. This model of care was developed at BMC/Boston University and the team here provides ongoing leadership to the program.