Our Child Psychiatry faculty have made themselves available to allied health professionals, lay groups and interviewers from the media to discuss a variety of topics, making accessible to professionals and nonprofessionals alike what we have learned about the disorders we treat. Over the years we have supplemented Facts for Families from the Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry with factsheets of our own. We design handy and comprehensible educational material to advocacy groups (e.g. Dr. Petti's contribution to CHADD, see reference below), and create videotapes pertaining to psychoactive medications (Stilwell, 1988) and normal moral development (Stilwell, Galvin and Kopta, 1990).

Converging with our experience in traditional psychoeducation is engagement of the child in healing narrative. As we do, so we teach. Each year our residents and interns learn about use of children's favorite fairy tales, (Bettelheim, 1977) mutual story telling, (Gardner,1971) therapeutic metaphor, (Mills & Crowley,1986, White,1995) bibliotherapy for children, (Berlin & Leventhal, 1991; Thomas, 1991) and bibliotherapy for parents (Laite, Riley Child Psychiatry didactic curriculum, 1994-present).

The idea of psychoeducational material in the format of books for children springs naturally from our use of such therapeutic modalities. Stories mutually told and healing metaphors created in the context of individual and family therapy do not necessarily lose their power once the index case is closed. If the story or the metaphor conveys some truth or truths about the disorder afflicting the child and the nature of the treatment, it may be recognized for having more general relevance. Hence, there is a discernible pathway beginning in therapeutic metaphor and mutual storytelling in individual cases, merging along the way with pathways of knowledge shared about specific conditions and treatments and issuing in the development of a psychoeducational special needs library. In a way, Riley Children’s Psychoeducational Workshop carries on the tradition of the Brothers Grimm, collecting and cultivating stories that merit being told again. Over the last decade, we have contributed to growing psychoeducational literature for children and their families. Subjects range from a child's first visit to a therapist to understanding the nature of encopresis. (Galvin & Ferraro, 1988 a, b, c, 1989; Galvin, Collins, & Ferraro with introduction by S. Blix, 1993; Galvin & Galvin, 1997; Galvin, Stilwell & Ferraro, with introduction by M. Gaffney, 1998).

Our first effort was in 1985. Work was begun on a book for children entitled, Ignatius Finds Help, A Story About Psychotherapy for Children. The story was illustrated by a colleague in Special Education at Larue Carter Hospital, Ms. Sandra Ferraro. Drafts of the story were reviewed by three child psychiatrists: Drs. Nancy Roeske, James Simmons and Takuya Sato and by the Special Education teachers at Carter. The final draft was complete with illustrations, and about 300 books were printed. The printing was made possible with a grant from The Arthur B. Richter Fund for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Indiana University School of Medicine. Subsequently, Mark Tracten, President of Brunner/Mazel Publishing Inc. in New York, purchased the rights to this story and arrangements were made to publish additional books about child psychiatry. The publication of Ignatius Finds Help in 1988 launched a new division of Brunner/Mazel called Magination Press which is devoted exclusively to special needs/mental health literature for children and their parents. Magination Press is now under the direction of the American Psychological Association. Since 1988, Ignatius Finds Help has found its place in the special needs collections in school libraries assembled by clinicians that serve children and their families. It has had a successful 10-year run in print in soft and hardcover. The success of Ignatius Finds Help is, however, modest in comparison to our second book, Otto Learns About His Medicine, A Story about Medication for Hyperactive Children (Galvin & Ferraro, 1988). A 1995 version has sold over 20,000 copies. Otto, like its predecessor, came into print only after careful review by other child psychiatrists, including Dr. Barbara Stilwell, and the teachers at Larue Carter. Otto was followed by a book entitled Robby Really Transforms, A Story about Grown-ups Helping Children (Galvin & Ferraro, 1988). Robby had very limited appeal. It sold few copies, we surmise, to clinicians serving the seriously and persistently mentally ill children in need of out of home placement, case management and play therapy. Drawing an analogy to drugs that may benefit people with uncommon conditions but which can not be successfully marketed because of limited demand, we think of Robby as our first orphan book. Another book which resulted from a collaborative effort was entitled Sometimes Y, A Story for Families with Gender Issues (Galvin, Collins, Ferraro, with introduction by Susanne Blix, M.D.,1993). Despite good reviews from specialists in childhood gender identity disorder, it suffered a similar fate. Publishers cited the problem of marketability. Since so few children have diagnoseable gender identity disorder, Sometimes Y is a loss leader. Consequently, Sometimes Y, our second orphan book, has only a limited printing which is subsidized with royalties from our previously published titles.

Through our Departmental Home Page, we have an opportunity to make an even greater contribution to overall awareness of childhood mental illness and its treatments. The Internet enables us to distribute psychoeducational materials to colleagues in mental health and to develop our own electronic special needs library. An electronic special needs library will solve the dilemma posed by our orphan books. Marketability, the concern of prospective publishers, has never been a concern of the professionals involved. They view their creative work as comparable to contributing to a professional journal for which there is customarily no compensation. In fact, no one involved in the authorship, illustration, critical reviews of psychoeducational and narrative content or contribution of introduction or commentary has received compensation for their efforts. The royalties received from published titles have been used to pay for education (e.g. summer internships, travel expenses for visiting professors) and research in the I.U. Department of Psychiatry, Section of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Moreover, electronic publication eliminates concern about the low prevalence of certain conditions that might be suitable targets for psychoeducational intervention. A high standard of quality is maintained through critical peer review.

Riley Children’s Psychoeducational Workshop is a division of Riley Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Section, Christopher McDougle, M.D., Director

The Children's Psychoeducational Initiative has received corporate support from Solvay Pharmaceutical Company.

Beardslee,W.,Wright,E.,Rothberg,P.,and Versage,E. (1996):Response of families to two preventive intervention strategies :long term differences in behavior and attitude change. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psych.35,6:774-782.

Berlin,I. & Leventhal,B.(1991):Bibliography for training in child and adolescent mental health, 3rd edition. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.pp.719-730.

Bettelheim,B.(1977): The uses of enchantment,the meaning and importance of fairy tales. Vintage Books, New York.

Brent,D., Poling,K., McKain, B., and Baugher,M.(1983): A psychoeducational program for families of affectively ill children and adolescents. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psych.32,4:770-774.

C.H.A.D.D. & A.A.C.A.P (Fall,1991): Medical management of children with attention deficit disorders, commonly asked questions. CHADDer

Gardner,R. (1971): Therapeutic communication with children the mutual storytelling technique. New York: Science House

Glick, I., Burti, L., Keigo,O. and Sacks, M. (1994): Effectiveness of psychiatric care. British Journal of Psych.164: 104-106.

Thomas, S. (1991): Parents perspectives: books for children. J Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology 1 (5): 383-386.

White, M. (1995):Re-authoring lives: interviews and essays. Dulwich Centre Publications, Adelaide, S. Australia.