Child Psychiatry and Child Welfare: A Collaboration for Change.

This article describes an innovative program, the Comprehensive Assessment and Response Training System (CARTS), designed to address the clinical needs of a selected population of adolescents with severe emotional disturbances who were made wards of Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) for severe abuse and neglect. A collaborative effort between DCFS and the University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Psychiatry, the CARTS Program provides crisis intervention, intensive evaluation and treatment planning services, technical assistance and consultation to residential facilities, and consultation to DCFS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]