The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington is committed to improving the lives of individuals living with autism through excellent patient care, innovative research, and inspired teaching. Our work transcends silos and brings people and ideas together.
Many of our faculty work at the Seattle Children’s Autism Center, an integral addition to the autism landscape in Seattle. Since its inception in 2009, the Center has served as a single point of entry to the Seattle Children’s Hospital system for families impacted by autism and has provided state-of-the-art clinical assessments and treatments for families and patients. Eight years later, it is one of the largest autism programs in the world serving over 4,000 patients each year and orchestrating 20,000 annual visits.
In addition to providing cutting-edge clinical services, UW Psychiatry faculty are international leaders in the development of innovative treatments and translational research devoted to advancing clinical care. Extramural research funding is significant, allowing faculty to drive autism advances and elevate Seattle as an autism research powerhouse. Between 2010 and 2016, department faculty contributed to raising nearly $40 million for autism research.
The time is ripe to reach for the next level of autism care, research, and education in the Pacific Northwest. As we look to the future, we envision increased collaboration with clinicians at the Seattle Children’s Autism Center, the Seattle Children’s Alyssa Burnett Adult Life Center, UW Autism Center, the Adult Autism Clinic at UWMC-‐Roosevelt, and the Haring Center for Research and Training in Inclusive Education and researchers at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and the UW Center on Human Development and Disability. We want to leverage operational efficiencies by effectively linking with community resources, and most importantly, by integrating clinicians and scientists caring for individuals with autism across the University. Looking beyond Seattle, we need to integrate and expand autism work across the Puget Sound – creating a source of consultation and support for health care providers who treat individuals with autism in Washington and other WWAMI states and who have little to no access to specialty care.
We invite you to learn more about our work in the following pages. Click here to read the report.
Sincerely,
Raphael Bernier, PhD
Sara Jane Webb, PhD
Comments are closed