The New York State Center of Excellence at the NYU Child Study Center is an innovative vision for child and adolescent mental health for the State of New York. With the support of the City and State of New York, it will establish new laboratories and programmatic initiatives, allowing for the recruitment of internationally renowned scientists to pursue cures, treatments and preventions.

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.

The new facility—the largest of its kind in the world—is a more than $200 million investment consisting of:

• A $30 million New York State grant to establish a Center of Excellence in a new 120,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility dedicated to interdisciplinary scientific research and treatment for the advancement of child mental health, located on the NYU Medical Center campus.
• A $35 million investment by New York State to build a state-of-the-art Rockland Children's Psychiatric Center, demonstrating a statewide commitment to the improvement of mental health services.
• Housing for 500 research faculty, trainees and staff that will work in 12 independent laboratories focusing on specific mental health and behavioral disorders.
• Expansion of the NYU Child Study Center's work in the areas of Anxiety and Mood Disorders, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Behavior Disorders, Prevention Science, Pediatric Neuroscience, Tourette's and Movement Disorders, Trauma and Stress, and Learning Disabilities.
• Establishment of a comprehensive clinical and research Eating Disorders Program and a state-of-the-art Autism Center.
• Creation of 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.

In partnership with New York City, NYU will also leverage outstanding local resources and create new synergies to collaborate with Bellevue Hospital Center to dramatically increase New York City's capacity to provide mental health services to low-income children and adolescents; disseminate the Child Study Center's successful ParentCorps program to increase parent involvement, prevent behavior problems and promote academic achievement in pre-kindergarten programs throughout the City; expand the Center's treatment for children and adolescents who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder not only from the events of 9/11, but also from the cumulative stresses of violence, poverty, abuse and crime; and expand the Center's school-based services in all five boroughs.

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.