Children's Hospital Neighborhood Partnerships

Boston Children's Hospital Neighborhood Partnerships (CHNP) is the community mental health program in the Department of Psychiatry at Children’s Hospital Boston.  For more than 10 years, the Boston Children’s Hospital Neighborhood Partnerships (CHNP) Program has placed social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists in schools and community health centers throughout Boston to provide a comprehensive array of mental health services to children and adolescents where they live and learn.

CHNP focuses its services on Roxbury, Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, and Dorchester—some of the most underserved neighborhoods in Boston—where families name mental health as a top health priority.  Children growing up in these communities experience high rates of poverty, interpersonal violence, deteriorating social structures, and systemic discrimination, putting them at greater risk for mental health problems that impair their academic performance and interpersonal relationships.  Yet these children and their families experience formidable barriers when attempting to access high-quality mental health services. 

CHNP seeks to alleviate barriers to quality mental health care through its two community-based programs: the School-Based Program and the Community Health Center Program.    

The School-Based Program includes partnerships with 12 schools in Boston, Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Dorchester, including elementary, K-8, middle, and high schools.  Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) social workers and psychologists work onsite to provide clinical, early intervention, and prevention and promotion services to students, and mental health training and consultation to school staff.  Family engagement is a critical component of CHNP’s work in schools.

The Community Health Center Program includes partnerships with 4 community health centers in Boston, Jamaica Plain, and Roxbury.  BCH child and adolescent psychiatrists work on-site to provide early identification, assessment, treatment, and care coordination services to children and adolescents receiving primary medical care at the health centers. The psychiatrists also provide mental health training and consultation to health center staff. 

 The goals of CHNP are:

1. To increase access to children’s mental health services in underserved communities;
2. To promote children’s social-emotional development through a broad spectrum of mental health services;
3. To build the sustainable mental health capacity of partner organizations;
4. To achieve high satisfaction with services provided among all key stakeholders; and
5. To promote systemic change in mental health service delivery

For more information contact:

Shella Dennery, PhD, LICSW 

CHNP Program Director

Email: Shella Dennery

Phone: 617-919-3201