Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, Cooper University Health Care and Rowan University-School of Osteopathic Medicine (SOM) are proud to announce the Child Abuse Research Education & Service (CARES) Institute Fellowship in Child Abuse Pediatrics. Established in 2017, the program is the first accredited three-year Child Abuse Pediatrics Fellowship in New Jersey and will accept one fellow per year.
The program will launch a fellow’s career in Child Abuse Pediatrics by building a foundation and experience evaluating children who may have been affected by child maltreatment. The fellow will be an integral part of both the child abuse pediatric team at the CARES Institute of Rowan University SOM and the inpatient CARE multi-disciplinary team at Cooper University Health Care.
The Children’s Regional Hospital at Cooper is committed to excellence in education, research and high quality, safe, family-centered care for pediatric patients and their families. As the only state-designated acute children’s hospital, hospital-based pediatric surgery program, and Level 1 Trauma Center in southern New Jersey, the Children’s Regional Hospital at Cooper provides exceptional pediatric primary care and comprehensive specialty support services for every patient, every day. The Children’s Regional Hospital also supports the largest pediatric teaching program in South Jersey.
For years, Cooper has partnered with the CARES Institute to provide medical services for children who may have suffered abuse and neglect. The CARES Institute, a Center of Excellence at Rowan School of Osteopathic Medicine, is one of four regional diagnostic and treatment centers (RDTC) in New Jersey, providing nearly 1,400 comprehensive child abuse medical evaluations annually. Each year, the CARES Institute also provides therapeutic services for over 700 children and families and over 400 comprehensive medical and mental health evaluations for children who are placed into kinship or foster care through the Comprehensive Health Evaluations for Children (CHEC) program. http://www.caresinstitute.org/
At CARES, the fellow will work with five board-certified child abuse pediatricians, two child psychiatrists, and a general pediatrician. In addition to clinical experience, the fellow will gain skills by participating in regional and national systems including multidisciplinary teams (MDTs), child fatality review and child abuse prevention programs. The fellow will have opportunities to develop the communication skills necessary to provide expert opinions in documentation and while testifying in court as well as develop pertinent skills for administration of a child abuse program.
The fellow will be provided ample time to conduct research to further knowledge in the field. The unique structure of the affiliations between Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, Cooper University Health Care, Rowan School of Osteopathic Medicine and the CARES Institute allows the fellow access to mentors with extensive expertise in a wide variety of academic and medical specialties. The fellow will participate in providing training and education to medical, mental health, child protection and law enforcement professionals and trainees. The fellow will also have the opportunity to observe initial evaluations as well as didactic sessions with Postdoctoral fellows to learn about Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and Combined Parent Child-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, (CPC-CBT) both evidenced-based treatment models developed at the Institute.
The fellowship is fully funded by the CARES Institute and the New Jersey Department of Children & Families (DCF). The fellow will be provided funding to attend a national conference each year, as well as opportunities to attend the CARES Institute annual symposium and other lectures in which internationally-recognized experts in the field of child abuse share their skills and knowledge about best practices.
Thank you for your interest in the fellowship. The next application dates will be in 2022-2023. Please feel free to contact us for further information.
More Information
Sponsoring Department: General Pediatrics
Length of Training: Three (3) years
Trainees per Year: One (1) fellow per year
Prerequisite Training: Successful completion of a primary residency program in General Pediatrics (in good standing).