Education Services During and Post Child and Adolescent Inpatient Psychiatric Treatment

Providing educational programming and post-discharge return-to-school planning are essential components of pediatric inpatient psychiatric hospitalization (IPH). Indeed, school has an essential role in a child’s life, and one of the most significant challenges is school re-entry after hospitalization. Transitioning from patient to student calls for coordination across school personnel, caregivers, and the hospital treatment team. In this chapter, we discuss considerations for school programming during IPH using Seattle Children’s Hospital as a case study and offer a guide for return-to-school planning. We acknowledge that the lack of existing literature in both of these areas of study presents limitations and encourage further exploration of best practices to support educational progress, while hospitalized and post-discharge return-to-school transition planning.