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After the collapse of the USSR the old system of child
mental health care also collapsed, and the new one was
not established until now. There was only one Child
Psychiatric Center in Yerevan, which was functioning
only for 2 years (1991-1992), and which then was closed.
After that point and up until now the only centralized
facility, where all the children and adolescents with
mental health problems may be referred is the Child
Neurological Department of one of the Pediatric
hospitals in Yerevan.
Mentioned above fact along with the absence of any
centralized professional mental health facilities in
Yerevan gave a rise to a big number of
"pseudo-psychiatrists or psychologists", unlicensed
individuals. This resulted in increase of wrongly
treated patients with all the consequent results.
By the initiative of Dr. Maruke Yeghiyan (currently
President of ACPP) with other colleagues was thought
that the best way to improve the standards of mental
health care would be to establish the professional
association with the purpose of uniting those, whose
professional interests are related to children’s mental
health.
Association of Child Psychiatrists and Psychologists
(ACPP) was established in 1997 as a nonprofit,
non-governmental professional organization, uniting on
the voluntary basis the child psychiatrists,
psychologists and other professionals, engaged in the
activities concerned with child and adolescent mental
health. ACPP unites all the child psychiatrists and the
most of child psychologists of Armenia. There are more
than 70 members of ACPP. There are also 7 honorary
members from Armenia, USA, UK and Switzerland.
ACPP is in very close contacts with a number of
associations and organizations both in Armenia and
overseas concerned with the same matters.
The ACPP considers the following programs as a
priority:
- public education on child and adolescent mental health issues
- work with disabled children and their families, destigmatization, violence prevention in transitional period
- implementation of international experience in matters of treatment and rehabilitation, adjusted to Armenian ethno-cultural circumstances
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