Project leader

Institute presentation

MPEA St Eloi is a unit for child and adolescent psychiatry located in Montpellier, the capital of the region Languedoc-Roussillon in the south of France. This unit offers general and specialized mental health care services within a catchment area of around 350 000 inhabitants.

MPEA-St Eloi has a yearly annual active file of 2000 patients of all age ranges with 40% adolescents. The outpatient clinic activity is about 6000 consultations of child psychiatrists and psychologists a year and the setting also comprises 10 places for adolescent inpatients and 38 places in day care units for children and adolescents of all age ranges.

The outpatient clinic offers specialized services for children with ADHD and other externalized disorders, somatoform disorders and eating disorders. For patients with comorbidities or complex neurodevelopmental disorders the MPEA team has developed multidisciplinary assessment facilities. For adolescents with severe conduct disorder or other disruptive disorders, a dedicated network team (Philado) facilitates inter-institutional collaborations.

In 2013 we will open an inpatient unit of 10 beds for intensive mixed educational and psychological/psychiatric interventions for adolescents with severe disruptive behaviors, for which medico-social support or foster care have failed to significantly impact problematic developmental trajectories, was opened.

In addition, our team is currently involved in a project aiming to improve services for adolescents with acute conditions. This project involves the creation of a post-emergency assessment facility with joint adult and child psychiatrists to optimize health care trajectoires and transitions from child and adolescent to adult psychiatry.The research activities of MPEA are directed towards behavioral disorders such as ADHD/CD and other disorders involving behavioral undercontrol such as emotional dysregulation disorders and suicidal behaviors. Our team has experience in clinical trials and international collaborative clinical and psychopharmacologic studies. In particular, MPEA Saint Eloi is involved in two FP7 projects: PERS Paediatric European Risperidone Studies assessing risperidone in conduct disordered youth with normal IQ and STOP Suicidality Treatment Onset in Paediatrics examining determinants of Medication Related Suicidality.

Our global aim is to enhance connexions between research and clinical activities through research, network and associative activities and to implement evidence based therapeutics with a particular focus on children and adolescents with challenging behavioral and emotional disorders.