HCPC Campaigns to Increase Awareness of Children's Mental Health Issues

The University of Texas-Houston Harris County Psychiatric Center recently launched a public education campaign aimed at increasing awareness of children's mental health issues.

David Small, administrator, The University of Texas-Houston Harris County Psychiatric Center, (left) and Lee Vela, Eller Media spokesman, unveil a billboard that will be part of UT-Houston HCPC's campaign to increase awareness of children's mental health issues.

The unveiling of the new campaign came on August 20 during UT-Houston HCPC's recognition of Children's Mental Health Awareness Day in Houston and Harris County. "We are celebrating the fact that mental illness is treatable," said HCPC administrator David R. Small, M.B.A., F.A.C.H.E., to the crowd gathered for the event.

The campaign will take the form of billboards, television and radio public service announcements prepared in both English and Spanish that are scheduled to blanket the Houston market. One of the billboards displayed at the event, sends the message: "Over 20,000 children in Houston suffer from treatable mental illness." The billboards are being donated by Eller Media, which plans to supply approximately 40 a month for the next year.

"My biggest hope is that the public will become more aware of mental illness," says Dr. Andrew Harper, chief of child and adolescent services at UT-Houston HCPC. "It is important to make an early diagnosis and early intervention. I think it is so important, particularly in children, because they are moving along developmentally at a rapid pace on a lot of fronts - with school, with their families, socially - and they can develop deficits."

Mental illness can be more difficult to detect in children, says Dr. Harper, not only because childhood and adolescence is a time of much development and transition, but also due to the fact that the research on the subject of mental illness in children is not as extensive as in adults.

Dr. Robert Guynn, UT-Houston HCPC executive director, addresses the group gathered at the August 20 event to unveil a new public education campaign.

"The research into what mental illness looks like in children and adolescents, number one, is on the short side in terms of quantity," says Dr. Harper, assistant professor at the UT-Houston Medical School, "and number two, we only recently - in the last 20 years or so - have begun to understand that children can suffer from a lot of these disorders the same as adults can."

He cites the example of depression, noting that it wasn't until the early 70s when people believed children could suffer from the illness. Depression is now one of the most common mental illnesses seen in children treated at UT-Houston HCPC, according to Dr. Harper. Children suffering from depression may exhibit one or more of the following warning signs:

• Feelings of guilt, helplessness or hopelessness;
• A depressed mood;
• A loss of interest in activities that used to be enjoyable;
• Jumpiness or irritability;
• Changes in sleep patterns, either lack of sleep or feelings that they are not rested following sleep;
• Changes in appetite, either weight loss or weight gain;
• Memory or concentration problems that may lead to a decline in school performance;
• Thoughts of suicide or preoccupation with themes of death.

UT-Houston HCPC treated more than 500 children and adolescents in 1998 with some form of mental illness. The hospital has a 16-bed children's unit and an additional 20 beds devoted to the care of adolescents.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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