title: Transcultural child psychiatry: its history, present status and future challenges.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To provide a historical review of transcultural child psychiatry in Canada and discuss its future mandate within traditional mental health services.
  
  
  METHODS
  To present a summary of some key papers and chapters in the literature which describe the history and present status of transcultural child psychiatry since its inception 30 years ago.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There is a virtual absence of transcultural material in the early editions of the most valued textbooks of child and adolescent psychiatry. This has only begun to change during the past 5 years. In Canada, work has centered around recently arrived immigrant and refugee children with comparatively little work being done with other minority groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Transcultural child psychiatry remains a profoundly understaffed subspecialty. To change this, university departments of child psychiatry should initiate the formation of groups of transculturally aware clinicians and researchers.
authors.affiliation: Montreal Children's Hospital, Anxiety Clinic, Montreal, Quebec.
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Minde