Dr. Betsy Kennard is currently a Professor in Psychiatry, the Director of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) at the Pediatric Psychiatry Research Program at UT Southwestern and Children’s Medical Center, and the Program Director of the Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology at UT Southwestern. She has expertise in pediatric depression and has served as a site co-investigator in three NIMH funded multi-site treatment studies of adolescent depression and suicide, and co-authored CBT treatment manuals for these three studies. She has developed a CBT sequential treatment strategy to prevent relapse in youth with depression, which was tested in two clinical trials with positive results including lower rates of relapse at 30 and 78 week follow-up in those that received CBT. The treatment manual for this relapse prevention study has been published by Guilford Press: CBT for Depression in Children and Adolescents: A Guide to Relapse Prevention (Kennard, Hughes, and Foxwell, 2016). She has adapted this treatment to youth with HIV and Depression, which also was tested in a clinical trial with positive results. Currently she is the principal invetigator (PI) on a NIMH R34, “Brief Intervention for Suicide Risk Reduction in High Risk Adolescents,” in collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh, NIMH R34 MH100375-01. Dr. Kennard directs the new intensive outpatient program for high risk youth: the Suicide Prevention and Resilience Program at Children’s (SPARC). The program, modeled after the Pittsburgh STAR-Center Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), provides evidence-based care to youth with suicidality within an outpatient setting.
