History

The roots of child and adolescent psychiatry in our society spread to early 1920ies, when the sychoanalytic
teaching started to make it's way to the area of former Yugoslavia.

Organized prevention and treatment of children and adolescents with psychic problems and difficulties started after WW II, when the mental health of children and adolescents was especially threatened by the consequences of the war and poverty.

In 1949, the then Yugoslav government asked Prof. dr Vojin Matic, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, to organize courses of child psychiatry and psychopathology.

With a group of doctors, special education therapists, psychologists, social workers etc, Dr Vojin Matić constituted in 1951 the first counselling center which dealt with mental problems of children and adolescents.

In the same year, the Department for Clinical Psychology and Psychopathology was constituted at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, and the course of Psychopathology of Childhood and Youth started for the first time.

The first hospital department of child neuropsychiatry was opened in 1949, at the adult Neuropsychiatry Clinic, Faculty of Medicine, Belgrade, and in 1978 it became an independent Department which then evolved into an Institute, i.e. the Clinic for Neurology and Psychiatry of Children and Adolescents.

The first complete indoor and outdoor hospital service for the treatment of psychiatric disorders of children and adolescents was established at the Institute of Mental Health in Belgrade in 1963.

After that, rapid development of different services for the prevention and treatment of psychiatric disorders of children and adolescents followed, mostly in big cities.

In 1984, the Department for Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy was opened at the Psychiatry Clinic of Clinical Center "Dr Dragisa Misovic" in Belgrade.

It was designed for both indoor and outdoor hospital treatment of patients, specifically adolescents and postadolescents; in Novi Sad in 1995 Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry started working within hte Institute for Psychiatry, and in Nis the Department for Developmental Age at the Clinic for Mental Health Care.

Development of the services for mental health care was followed by the process of education of professionals in those services (doctors, psychologists, social workers etc.).

The education was mostly under the influence of psychodynamic and psychoanalytic theory, but the social psychiatry was present alongside from the very beginning.

Significant development of child and adolescent psychiatry followed after introducing neuropsychology to the education of special education therapists in 1979, and then to education of neuropsychiatrists in 1984.

The publications and textbooks of our eminent teachers and authors such as Vojin Matic, Milica Jojic-Milenkovic, Svetomir Bojanin, Nevenka Tadic, Ksenija Kondic, as well as series of monography entitled «Adolescence», promoted and facilitated development of child and adolescent psychiatry into a separate discipline, so in 1992 it was separated from neuropsychiatry as a specialization of its own, lasting 4 years at Faculty of Medicine, Belgrade University.

Until then, the education for child psychiatrists was 4 semesters subspecialisation of adult neuropsychiatry.

In 1970 special Section for child neuropsychiatry was constituted within The Serbian Medical Society, and in 1986 Yugoslav Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry was established, with eminent members from Serbia and Montenegro such as: Vojislav Ćurčić, Tamara Štajner-Popović, Ksenija Kondić etc.

With disintegration of former Yugoslav Federation this Society ceased to exist.

In the summer of 2004, DEAPS (Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions of Serbia and Montenegro) was formed
in Belgrade.

It was soon recognized and accepted by the international organizations such as IACAPAP (International Association for Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry and Allied Professions), and ESCAP (European Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry)

The activities of the Association started to develop through professional manifestations, such as the national conference ’’Internal and External Reality of Adolescent’’ and an international symposium ’’Current Themes in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’’, held in 2005. Over the years the Association has expanded its activities. It hosts regular meetings four times a year and since 2007 organizes international congresses which are held every three years (read about the fourth DEAPS international congress 2016 on Zlatibor).

The goals of the Society are focused on raising the level of professional knowledge and organizational models of mental health care of children and adolescents, as well as on gathering and organizing the professionals of different occupations for the same purpose: further development of child and adolescent psychiatry and allied professions.

Due to cessation of existence of former State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, and constitution of Republic of Serbia in 2006, the name of the Association has been changed to Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions of Serbia – DEAPS.

In April 2010 the society carried out re-registration according to the Law on Associations of the Republic of Serbia adopted in July 2009.