Nurturing Beginnings: Dr. Alicia Barnes and Team Are Helping Create Healthier Communities for Children

Dr. Alicia Barnes and the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at UT Health Sciences are growing collaborative care locally and statewide.

Memphis wasn't on Alicia Barnes' bingo card, but she saw an alignment she couldn't ignore.

The physician arrived three years ago, answering a listserv post from a colleague she had first met as a medical student at a national community psychiatry conference. She wasn't actively looking. Yet when Altha Stewart, MD, posted about a leadership opportunity at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences, Dr. Barnes saw something worth working toward.

Today, Alicia A. Barnes, DO, MPH, holds three titles: director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at UT Health Sciences, chief of Pediatric Psychiatry at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, and the inaugural Urban Child Institute Endowed Chair of Excellence in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the university. The latter, a first-of-its-kind appointment, plants her at the cross-section of clinical care, academic medicine, and community health. She doesn't experience them as three separate jobs.

"It's really serving as a connector and a convener across those systems and for our community," she says. "With these three roles, it's working with the Urban Child Institute, which centers children's well-being in Shelby County in the early childhood ages, and then also working with Le Bonheur, which has that similar drive of caring for the whole child."

A Crisis That Demands Collaboration

The national picture is stark. Since the pandemic and reaffirmed last year, the Children's Hospital Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have all named child mental health a national crisis. Dr. Barnes emphasizes one in five children will need a child and adolescent psychiatrist at some point. The math doesn't work without collaboration across every system that touches a child's life, she says.

The goal is to close the gaps between them, a "soft hand-off," she says. Not a protocol but a relationship. It could be a family support specialist attending a school meeting for a child with behavioral or learning concerns, or alongside a family navigating a medication change. It could be someone accompanying a patient to the pharmacy to make sure a prescription gets filled. Community clinic partners have been elemental to putting that model to work, Dr. Barnes highlights, pairing clinical care with the kind of on-the-ground coordination that keeps families from falling through the cracks.

This philosophy also drove the 3rd Annual Psychiatric-Advocacy Collaborative Teams Summit (PACTS), hosted May 1 at Crosstown Concourse in Memphis. The summit brings clinicians, educators, community organizations, judges, policymakers, and others into the same room, intentionally. The breaks between sessions aren't filler, Dr. Barnes notes, they're the point.

"That convening as a whole really brought people together. People can have conversations, learn about programs and resources in the area, ask questions about how to refer, or even just exchange ideas and numbers for future collaborations."

Chancellor Peter Buckley, MD, himself a psychiatrist, attended the inaugural summit in 2024. Three medical students worked the registration table that day. By the end of the event, all three told Dr. Barnes they were certain they wanted to go into psychiatry. They're now heading into their fourth year.

The 3rd Annual Psychiatric-Advocacy Collaborative Teams Summit (PACTS) took place May 1 at Crosstown Concourse in Memphis, bringing together clinicians, educators, community organizations, judges, policymakers, students, and others.

"The Department of Psychiatry at UT Health Sciences has been growing our programs in clinical care, research, education and training, and public service to meet the vast need for psychiatric services in our area and throughout Tennessee," says Ronald Cowan, MD, PhD, FAPA, Harrison Distinguished Professor and chair of Psychiatry at UT Health Sciences.

He adds how Dr. Barnes is working closely with Le Bonheur, Alliance Healthcare Services, the Urban Child Institute, and others to advance child and adolescent psychiatry. This regional team approach is carving out a program in clinical care, research, and scholarship in the areas of early childhood mental illness and associated risk factors, including adverse childhood events, specific trauma, poverty, neighborhood and home violence, neglect, and direct and indirect consequences of substance use disorders.

Laurie Powell, CEO of Alliance Healthcare Services, met Dr. Barnes several years ago when she was interviewing for the university position. "I immediately could see how much she cared about improving the lives of children and families impacted by trauma, and who need quality mental healthcare. I'm thankful we get to work together to train the university's residents in community behavioral health."

Fostering a Healthy Childhood Community

Dr. Barnes trained in public health alongside medicine, and it shows how she approaches the challenge. Rather than focusing on what's broken, she looks for existing strengths to build on. Much of her research runs directly through schools, which she sees as one of the most powerful levers available for early intervention.

Her lens is personal, she adds. She grew up in a family of educators, and the connection between classroom and clinic also feels natural to her. "We work with schools to support education as a protective factor and a positive childhood experience, when we are able to encourage joy in learning."

Through a grant with the Urban Child Institute, she's leading an initiative geared toward equipping parents and teachers with tools for the emotional learning and childhood development that happens in schools. It's the kind of upstream work her public health training taught her to value, reaching children and the adults around them before a crisis forms.

"We know what a healthy community looks like," she says. "A young child who's feeling safe, feeling loved, feeling cared for. That starts in the home. But it also starts in having healthy caregivers who feel supported. Supporting families is just as important as supporting the child."

The Urban Child Institute's Executive Director Gary Shorb shares Dr. Barnes has been a tremendous addition to the institute's board and the entire region. "She's an experienced professional in the field of child mental health and early childhood development, and a committed partner in working collaboratively in the field to improve access and quality of care. She's a great asset to our community."

"We know what a healthy community looks like."

Dr. Alicia Barnes

Tennessee, Dr. Barnes observes, already has infrastructure that others don't. The Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth's Building Strong Brains initiative has embedded trauma-informed language across government offices, faith communities, and schools statewide. The commission is also leading Resilient Tennessee initiatives on positive childhood experiences, including the recently held 2026 Resilient Tennessee Collaborative Summit.

Additionally, at a recent Children's Hospital Association behavioral health conference Dr. Barnes attended, a representative from Boston, where a $300 million investment is funding a new children's mental health center, acknowledged Memphis had things worth learning from.

"I think we have the foundation to do community psychiatry for children and their families in a holistic way," Dr. Barnes says, "through the partnerships between Le Bonheur, UT Health Sciences, public offices, and nonprofits."

The long-term vision is to expand that expertise beyond Memphis. Her team's post-pediatric portal program, one of only a handful in the country, Dr. Barnes stresses, allows pediatricians who have completed residency to pursue a three-year fellowship combining general psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry. The department wants that pipeline multiplying and the specialty spreading across every corner of Tennessee.

"Ideally, there'll be many more of me," she says. "We know the earlier we intervene, the better the overall outcome."