Pediatric Behavioral Outpatient Interview

[Errn22]

I have been working in ED nursing since graduating with my RN ~4.5 years ago and earned my BSN a year ago. Ever since starting nursing school, I have wanted to work with peds/adolescent psych patients, but everyone talked me out of it, including my mother who has been a nurse for 30+years, all having negative things to say about psych nursing. While I enjoy ED nursing, I've been wanting to branch out and I found a position opening for a nurse working in an outpatient center for 5-12 year olds with behavioral problems who are at high risk for being kicked out of school. It's a day program with schooling integrated. I thought this would be a good introduction for me so I applied.

I had an interview a few days ago and the administrative manager explained somewhat about the position (she couldn't tell me exactly what a nurse's day consists of there because she oversees 4 different types of psychiatric clinics for the hospital) and advised they had been looking for two months but the peer interview team did not want to bring on anyone that had interviewes yet. Basically I would be working with one other nurse and our assigned patients would be her with the younger ones and me with the older ones. She has been there a long time and is in charge of a lot and is concerned about hiring someone without experience or leadership abilities for days that she would not be there. I was advised by the manager to emphasize my leadership qualities, however I only have limited psych experience from the ED. I am more than willing to learn all that I can and I would like to have some necessary knowledge under my belt before my peer interview this week. Can anyone suggest some books and/or websites for me to read to increase knowledge regarding, ADHD, ODD, CD, etc? I would greatly appreciate it - I want this job so bad!