481 - Advancing Mental Health Training for Pediatric Residents Through a Co-Creation Approach

Publication Number: 481.3927

Emma Burdekin, UCLA Mattel Childrens Hospital, Santa Monica, CA, United States; Raquel Perez-Asante, UCLA Mattel Childrens Hospital, Los Angeles, CA, United States; Christine K. Thang, University of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Background: The American Academy of Pediatrics declared a mental health crisis in 2021, highlighting rising mental health concerns among children and advocating for greater access to mental healthcare within pediatric practice. In response, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) introduced a new requirement for pediatric residency programs to include four weeks of mental health training, effective July 2025.

Objective: Our Pediatrics Residency Program identified mental health as a top educational and advocacy priority during the 2023-2024 academic year. To meet new ACGME requirements and effectively address mental health training gaps, we aimed to develop a resident-centered curriculum using a co-creation approach.

Design/Methods: We employed a co-creation approach for our curriculum development, ensuring equal collaboration between educators and learners from the outset. We chose this approach because we wanted the combined insights of residents and faculty working together with a shared understanding of the learners’ needs during training and the clinical realities of limited mental health access in practice.

Results: Our core working group was a general pediatric attending and two pediatric residents collaborating with program leadership and psychologists and psychiatrists. The co-creation approach led to a mental health rotation consisting of two two-week blocks (Tables 1, 2). The first-year rotation focuses on general mental health exposure, allowing interns to build foundational skills and knowledge. The second-year rotation emphasizes subspecialty mental healthcare. The didactic component includes the EMPOWER Behavioral Mental Health Curriculum from the Association of Pediatric Program Directors. The rotation was piloted as an elective starting in July 2024 for current second- and third-year pediatric residents to engage early participation, gather feedback, and implement quality improvement cycles ahead of its mandatory implementation in July 2025. Initial feedback from participating residents underscores the importance of early exposure to a range of clinical settings and highlights the effectiveness of structured mental health education, with residents reporting increased confidence in mental healthcare delivery.

Conclusion(s): The co-creation approach has been instrumental in crafting a curriculum that is responsive to residents’ needs and interests and that aligns with ACGME requirements. Through sharing our experience, we aim to encourage other pediatric programs to adopt co-creation as a powerful approach for developing resident-centered training in mental healthcare.

Table 1.
Two-week mental health rotation for first-year pediatric interns developed through a co-creation approach by pediatric residents and pediatric faculty.

Table 2.
Two-week mental health rotation for second-year pediatric residents developed through a co-creation approach by pediatric residents and pediatric faculty.