Child and Adolescent Services

Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital & Trauma Center
1001 Potrero Avenue, Box 0852
Building 5, 6B
San Francisco, CA 94110
Phone for questions and appointments: (628) 206-4444
Referring providers: (888) 246-3333
For calls regarding private insurance or out-of-pocket inquiries, please call UCSF Health Child and Adolescent Services at (415) 476-7000.

Program Director: William Martinez, PhD
Program Administrative Staff: Isaac Mauro-Sachs, Kyle Remy, Lea Wager-Smith, Gloria Zermeno

Child and Adolescent Services (CAS) at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center is an outpatient clinic devoted to providing mental health and substance abuse services to the children of San Francisco and their families who are living in or near poverty to facilitate the full and healthy development of each child and youth and support their families. These services consist of assessment, treatment, advocacy, and referral services for children, youth, and families who have experienced trauma (interpersonal, community, medical, immigration), and/or who present with serious emotional or behavioral problems by making available accessible, clinic, community, and school-based mental health services that are linguistically and culturally appropriate and evidence-informed.

CAS also provides empirically supported youth eating disorder assessment and treatment and integrated care with primary care providers in pediatric continuity clinics to decrease barriers in access to care and support the health development of each child and youth. In addition, CAS collaborates with Foster Care Mental Health to provide prompt assessment of needed level of care and intake to mental health services for children and youth in foster care, as well as those seen at the CAS clinic at Zuckerberg San Francisco General. CAS also provides training and consultation to systems (e.g. San Francisco Unified School District, San Francisco Department of Public Health) that serve children, youth, and families who have experienced trauma.

A full time child psychiatrist provides medication services, including initial psychiatric evaluation, evaluation of clinical effectiveness and side effects, medication education, and ongoing medication management visits. Services may include prescribing and monitoring psychiatric medications and ongoing collaboration with the therapist. In addition, the child psychiatrist provides emergency psychiatric and medication management consultation services for youth related to 5150/5250 circumstances (until they are medically cleared and transferred to appropriate care), as well as responding to general pediatric requests for psychiatric and medication management

Many children and youth experience difficulties within the school system and related to learning. For these individuals, CAS collaborates with the San Francisco Unified School District, providing consultation and psychological assessments to identify possible strategies for addressing those difficulties. For clients in the foster care system, consultation with providers in the Department of Human Services is a key component to care coordination. CAS staff coordinates services with primary care and community providers as needed.

Services provided by CAS include:

Assessment
Individual/play therapy
Family therapy
Group therapy
Psychiatric evaluation/medication evaluation and management
Outreach to families affected by trauma
Crisis intervention and brief therapy
Eating disorder evaluation and treatment
Consultation-liaison service - inpatient and outpatient
Psychological testing
Teen-sensitive services
Consultation for child care and primary caregivers
Information and referrals

CAS has a range of providers including UCSF faculty and staff child psychologists, a child psychiatrist, a clinical social worker, a marriage and family therapist, pre- and postdoctoral clinical psychology trainees, psychiatry residents, and fellows. Faculty and staff have a wide range of experience including areas of specialty in early childhood, trauma, teen violence, adolescent substance abuse, family therapy, work with foster care children, culturally appropriate services, pediatric eating disorders, and consultation with pediatric primary care providers. Staff members work very closely with primary care providers and offer services in community settings. English and Spanish are spoken and there is access to interpreters for other non-English speaking clients.