A community-based public-academic liaison program

Objective: The authors discuss obstacles and incentives associated with successful community-based public-academic liaison activities and illustrate their conclusions by describing their public-academic liaison program, which received the American College of Psychiatrists'first annual Award for Creativity in Psychiatric Education. Method: The first 8 years of a state/university collaboration are described in which the parties involved first developed a variety of innovative services designed to fill specific gaps in the public service delivery system and subsequently integrated academic research and training components