Child and adolescent psychiatry has long been recognized as a shortage specialty by various national studies. The workforce has never increased to the extent that meets society's demand, however. The workforce crisis has continued with declining funding for residency, declining clinical revenues, and declining recruitment of trainees. This article reviews the historical trend of recruitment, recruitment dynamics (training programs and trainees), workforce models, and future direction. It concludes with hope and excitement in the field for recruitment, including the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry's 10-year recruitment initiative that has been generating the support of medical/psychiatric educators, governmental agencies, and the public at large, to improve the profession's recruitment efforts to provide access to quality care and needed services to the nation's children and adolescents and their families.