Clinical Services | UC Davis CAARE Diagnostic and Treatment Center | UC Davis Children's Hospital

CAARE Center psychologists are trained to complete a broad spectrum of psychological evaluations. We have extensive experience in assessing children, adults and families who have experienced some form of abuse and can provide psychological evaluations for differential diagnosis and treatment planning, child welfare court-ordered evaluations as well as emergency response evaluations.

The CAARE Center provides mental health services for children who have experienced a crime, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, exposure to community violence, parental substance abuse and neglect. Services focus on reducing the emotional and behavioral symptoms that can occur following a traumatic event. 

Parent-Child Care (PC-CARE) is a 6-session dyadic treatment program for families that are interested in improving caregiver-child relationships and are willing to learn new child behavior management strategies. It serves families with children ages 1 to 10 years. A wide range of caregivers can participate, including biological parents, foster and kin caregivers, and adoptive caregivers.

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is an intensive treatment program for children ages 2 to 7 designed to help both parents and children. PCIT works to improve the quality of the parent-child relationship by teaching parents the necessary skills to manage their child’s severe behavioral problems.

Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) is treatment shown to help children and adolescents ages 3 to 18, and their caregivers to overcome trauma-related difficulties. The goal is to address the needs of children with problems related to traumatic life experiences such as abuse, violence and grief, such as sexual abuse, physical abuse, and domestic violence.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a treatment designed specifically for individuals with self-harm behaviors, such as cutting, suicide attempts and suicidal ideation. Many meet criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder and all have problems with emotional regulation. DBT is offered to adolescents and young adults ages 12 to 21.

Our CAARE center team includes psychologists with expertise in providing psychiatric case consultations for physicians, law enforcement, social workers and attorneys, as well as expert testimony for family, juvenile and superior court cases.