“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Spoken by Frederick Douglas in 1855 these words still ring true. And they hold great relevance to mental health professionals - even more so for those of us entrusted with training the psychiatric workforce. Against the setting of an acute on chronic youth mental health crisis and gaping youth mental health professional shortages, many child psychiatry fellowship slots go unfilled each year. This is but one manifestation of the misalignment between academia and training as usual and what is needed to meet our society’s needs. While increasing needed and long overdue attention and resources are being allocated to addressing various interpersonal and structural ‘isms, adultism is an afterthought - if thought of at all. The absence of the youth voice, the paltry allocation of public dollars to children and families, and even our own psychiatric diagnostic criteria disadvantage children and adolescents. This disadvantage has practical implications for well-characterized social determinants of mental health such as poverty and food insecurity that disproportionately impact youth.This presentation will explore adultism’s micro and macro mental health impacts on health, illness, treatment, and training - and challenge the audience, those who identify as CAPs and perhaps even more importantly those who do not, to reconceptualize the work of child psychiatry.