Objectives of the Center
(1) The objectives of the Center are as follows:
a) To protect, improve, and strengthen child and adolescent development, which is the period when individuals and society are shaped.
b) To evaluate children and adolescents, who form the foundations of life, with a holistic approach around the biological, social, cultural, economic, and environmental factors they are surrounded by.
c) To create awareness regarding child and adolescent mental health, plan together for protection and improvement, create projects, and sustain the implemented projects by establishing partnerships with public institutions and organizations, universities, municipalities, mother-child health centers, schools, guidance and research centers, and police departments within the scope of relevant legislative provisions.
ç) To work in academic, clinical, and social cooperation with mental health and diseases specialists, child and adolescent mental health and diseases specialists, child health and diseases specialists, nurses, family physicians, sociologists, social work and child development specialists, psychological counselors, law enforcement officers, and other relevant specialists and stakeholders.
d) To create awareness in society, health circles, and policy-makers when approaching child-adolescent mental health problems, and to steer towards protective and preventive mental health services regarding all factors.
e) To carry out activities aimed at solving problems, such as ensuring that those with child-adolescent mental health problems can access treatment services, establishing referral systems to treatment centers, encouraging the establishment of adequate units in level and number, and organizing trainings in order to qualify the units and the team that will provide services.
f) To examine national and international studies conducted for children and adolescents in cooperation with the University's R&D unit, to be aware of ongoing local, national, and global researches/projects, to monitor and support ongoing projects, and to cooperate.
g) To make plannings by considering that protection and treatment approaches may show differences on the basis of interculturalism and multiculturalism in the context of effective factors in child and adolescent mental health, and to create programs specific to our culture and the problems that may arise on this basis.
h) To carry out studies to access resources and increase support systems regarding the changing needs in child and adolescent education along with the changing social roles and perceptions regarding the concepts of being a mother, being a father, and being a parent.
ı) To collect data through scientific publications and researches in order to determine the current needs of our country in the field of child-adolescent mental health and autism, and to carry out needs-oriented studies in the light of this data.
i) To train perinatal mental health workers who have the qualifications to offer guidance, training, and support services through theoretical and practical studies regarding problems based on the functional deterioration of parent-child-adolescent attachment, problems based on the loss of development and quality of life due to mental illnesses, and relationship and communication problems.
j) To provide consultancy, training, and support services to mothers and fathers and their relatives, and to professionals in close contact with mothers, within the scope of preventive services for child and adolescent mental health under relevant legislation.
k) To provide guidance, training, and support services for the mental health of parents with a holistic understanding that evaluates child-adolescent mental health within its social, cultural, and environmental factors.
Fields of activity of the Center
(1) The fields of activity of the Center are as follows:
a) To engage in studies supporting social policies that will strengthen child-adolescent mental health, in harmony with national and social policies and in parallel with the common goals and works of relevant public institutions and organizations, and to implement and/or develop strategic action plans in parallel with these policies.
b) To provide educational, consultancy, protective, preventive, educational, developmental, guiding, and rehabilitative services for child-adolescent mental health within the scope of relevant legislation.
c) To offer training programs for healthcare professionals and educators working in the field of child-adolescent health.
ç) To conduct academic studies on autism and neurodevelopmental disorders in children and adolescents, and to share the obtained data at national and international levels through publications, training, and conferences.
d) To organize training and certificate programs and support groups related to child-adolescent mental health, and to provide online or telephone counseling services at specific days and hours.
e) To engage in activities such as application, research, and publication studies in cooperation with national and international institutions and organizations within the scope of relevant legislation.
f) To engage in guidance and social support activities related to autism.
g) To conduct academic research (R&D) and clinical application studies on child-adolescent mental health and autism; to train the necessary staff to carry out similar studies.
h) To carry out publishing activities that will raise public awareness about autism, to conduct distance education when necessary for relevant individuals alongside live programs, to prepare informative documents within the scope of the website for this purpose, and to provide a question-and-answer platform.
ı) To carry out other activities determined by the Rector and/or the Board of Trustees or decided by the University Executive Board within the scope of the Center.