Since 1990 Lithuania started to develop a model of community based services with the strategic goal to introduce modern public health approaches and create an alternative to the traditional system of residential institutions for children with different mental and developmental problems. The Ministry of Health established a University affi liated Child Development Centre in the fi rst half of 1990’s to pilot programmes in the fi elds of early intervention for infants at risk, child psychiatry (inpatient, day care, crisis intervention services), and a telephone helpline with trained volunteers to consult with children and adolescents. The next phase, which.
