E. Camarena-Robles :CHILD TRAINING PROGRAMS IN MEXICO

country, where the level of socio-economic development varies very much from one region to another. There are some highly developed states as for their infrastructure and level of education, and there are some others that are underdeveloped. This has favored a big concentration of resources in large cities and an abandonment in rural areas. This is the reason why the Federal Government Program of Mental Health has been created. Mexico’s Child Mental Health Program remains integrated in this latter program, that establishes strategic lines and objectives including the child and adolescent population with mental disorders. The main objectives include the extension of the ambulatory and hospitalization net services for the children with mental health problems. Some more actions derive from these objectives. Among these is the opening of mental health services in highly specialized hospitals, i.e. the regional ones, with a homogeneous geographic distribution due to the complexity of the Mexican territory. We have started training for all primary care physicians in the detection of the main children’s mental disorders that should be diagnosed in primary care. Also, an educational plan has been developed for teachers. This will be a long-term project, because there are more than 170,000 teachers in our country. This general program has been complementedwith a specific program for faighting attention-deficit/huperactivity disorder(ADHD).Other activities are those related to the collaboration with the public Education Secretariat,aiming to modify the curricula for the education of the teachers, so that thez acquire a better knowledge in the area oh child psychopathology.