good morning. do you know the warning signs of mental illness in a child or young adult? this is national mental health awareness month. it's also the anniversary of nbc 4's changing mind campaign. starting to focus on the issue of mental health awareness. our guest is a child and adolescent psychiatrist. he is chief of the substance abuse and mental health services administration adolescent and family branch. she is the director of youth and family services for every mind which is formally the mental health association. welcome all of you to

different than they are in an adult? and i'll ask you? >> well it could be a little confusing because kids are moving targets so there's always change as they develop so it can be really hard for some families to identify is what i'm seeing typical development or is this really an indication of a problem. so for instance teens. so it's typical for teens to get a little bit moody at what point do you say this is no longer moodiness but maybe an indication of something much more significant like a mood disorder whether it's depression or by polar disorder so what you're really looking for is is there a dramatic shift in how your child is behaving now versus how they have been in the past. what i'll tell people is you just have to trust your gut. you know your child and if you have any concerns what's the harm in going and seeking out a little bit of

experience in dealing with issues, mental health issues in kids. talk to them and let them help you figure out whether there's something else that needs to be done. >> what are some of the more common issues in children and adolescen adolescents? >> certainly depression is often a common sign, anxiety disorders and it can expand from there and young people have had bipolar disorder and where a youngster may be budding into a schitzophrenia. and parents know best. they can develop an understanding of how their youngster is typically developing and if there's major changes. there's a campaign about

becomes extremely agitated or withdrawn. those are things we would say are potentially of concern and that's when somebody would get a professional opinion. >> and do we know what causes depression in children? you would think at that point in their lives obviously there can be circumstances and atmospheric influences but childhood should be a happy time and it's difficult to look at and think of a child as being a depressed person. >> yeah, i mean, sure. it's hard to imagine that but the reality is that absolutely about 10% of kids will develop a depressive episode at some point before they reach the age of 18. one thing a lot of people will be fascinated by is the cdc something does called the youth risk behavior survey. this is arv

nation. and they ask have you had thoughts about seriously considering suicide in the last 12 months and the answer is that roughly 20% of high school students in any given year will endorse suicidal thoughts. 8% will make a suicide attempt so we are talking about numbers of kids out there that really are struggling and so whether we think that their lives should be good they are struggling and some of the challenges that come with social media and cyber bullying those are definitely contributing factors. >> since you brought it up, there's a series, the netflix series 13 reasons why that has been in the news in the past couple of weeks and there's a lot of debate

is good for children to watch and young people or whether it promotes unhealthy behavior and we're going to talk about that after we take a quick break and we will be back in a minute. y2c5py y16fy

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too. reported side effects include vomiting, itching, diarrhea, lethargy and lack of appetite. see your vet for more information on flea and tick protection you and your dog will love. nexgard. the vet's #1 choice. welcome back. we're talking about mental health and mental illness this morning. the netflix series 13 reasons why set off an intense debate about whether a show about bullying and rape and suicide was a valuable conversation starter for teenagers or whether it condones, promotes or even romanticizes or glorifies suicide. so i'll ask what you think. parents got notices

asking them to discuss it with their children. tell whaus yus what you have se your thoughts about this? >> we heard quite a bit of conversations about parents and students mentioning they have seen the show or pieces of the show. we do know there's graphic scenes and we heard about various pieces that children or parents are reacting to. they don't know if it's something for their children to view or might raise concerns for them or their children in conversation and while many of the concepts in the show may not be new to the students the context or how it might be presented is something that parents are concerned about and raises the conversation of how do we talk about these topics with kids in ways that are helpful or productive. that's something the school system has taken into consideration and several national organizations such as the national association for

the show to help guide parents or caregivers on how to discuss these topics and how involved with their students that they are watching the show. >> this is the series, the show in the news now but of course there's other programs out there like this and as you pointed out many kids are aware of this problem and may be seeing it in their schools and in their circles. doctor, can a program like that tow think become a teaching tool to help teenagers deal with the aftermath of problems that they are seeing every day? they're seeing or being bullied, maybe bullying themselves. they're dealing with sexual assault in school even at an early age and they're certainly dealing with student who is have thought about suicide, who may be contemplating it. they may have contemplated it themselves. >> you laid out the right argument for why it's not

people to talk about these things. i again haven't seen the show but my gut feeling is is that probably more good can come from it than bad. i think that any opportunity that a parent can have to sit down with their child and have something that's going to help them engage in these very difficult conversations and i think parents should maybe watch the show ahead of time before they sit down with their kids so they're prepared and maybe they can go online and think about what they might want to talk to their kids about in advance so they don't get stunned and take it back and there's probably going to be good learning to take place in productive conversations that could go anywhere. you could talk to yourself about have you seen this? have you been the victim of this, what would you do in the situation. >> what would you add to that. >> i think first of all death by suicide is extremely tragic and brings up all kinds of things

a glamourization of suicide. that's not an answer to problems and there's other ways to get help so we're highly recommending that if people can talk to their young people are they looking at the show. can they discuss these things. how is it making them feel. are there needs to reach out for additional help. like i said before parents know their kids best and if they're starting to see that a child or a young person is gravitating toward the show or wanting to hurt themselves in some way that's a time to reach out. i work for the substance abuse and mental health services administration and, you know, our whole role here is to assist with reducing the impact of mental illness and substance abuse on america's communities. >> so what we're trying to do is say to folks let's talk about it and let's try to find ways that a young person

end up in a tragic death. there's a lifeline. 1-800-273-talk. that's 1-800-273-talk or 8255. that's an important number we have as a resource. that's one of the things we do to help people if they concern or feel at risk for anyway. >> we're going to take a break and continue our talk right after this.

we're talking about mental illness and mental health this morning. all of you are working in your own ways to raise awareness and help children and families that are struggling with these issues. tell us what every mind does. who you are. >> it's a local nonprofit. we focus on

communities to help individuals with mental wellness. one of the things we have a help line that's a 24/7 hotline that parents and individuals can call into. that's 301-738-call or 2255. that number is hotline service that we had in place for quite awhile and there's a sign and there's actually been a chat service when they're more dependent on texting and online chatting we built those components as well. it's a school based community on school set up it's a partnership between montgomery county department of health and human services as well as montgomery county public schools and nonprofits such as every mind. the model actually integrates a lot of different social services into the schools themselves so we work directly with the schools to provide community advocacy and

bringing extra and it's the whole community we're focused on and we also provide case management and mental health services to the students in the schools. >> is that program in all montgomery county schools in. >> it's not. 29 schools in the county have them and hopefully the number will grow overtime and there's a variety of different versions of the program if you look at community schools as a larger initiative across the entire country this happens to be montgomery county's version of community schools. and they actually have their versions of community schools and there's a lot of initiatives across the entire united states to bring communities into the schools and really focus on how having a wholistic view of an individual youth and their family and community supporting that child throughout their education. >> and are there any fees associated with the linkages to learning? >> so for our particular set up

we don't charge fees for case management and mental health services. any fees charged are based on sliding scale and we don't turn people away for services so if somebody comes to us and has a need we'll do what we can to provide services for them. if we can't meet the need ourselves we help them connect to other private places or organizations in the community and stick with them until they get involved with other services. >> from your perspective as a mental health practitioner as a physician, how important are these services to growing and developing minds. >> it's great. when you're getting the feedback from multiple people. teachers are an invaluable resource. they're seeing the kids from more hours during the day than a lot of the parents are so they can get the feedback from the teachers and the other kids. you're seeing them in their stressful environments where they may be having some of the

if you can intervene on that very detailed level that's really where the money is so to speak. >> you brought up stress which we haven't discussed but can stress bring on mental illness or mental health challenges? >> it's interesting because stress in and of itself everybody deals with it differently but the truth is stress causes changes, physical changes in your body and so it can lead to various kinds of both physical and emotional kinds of challenges. so and also how come that mental health or behavioral health is an essential part of overall health. the whole concept of mind body connection so what is stressful on the outside can lead to physical or

approach for integrated care where you have everybody working together. you mentioned this wrap around. we call it systems of care which is a whole network of people that are in a child's life that will help them, doctors and teachers and coaches and you know recreational kinds of folks and neighbors and friends and everybody in the life of a child that may be having a problems together to create this wholistic approach. that's this concept that mental health is essential to health is all about. >> if someone comes to you and says i think my child is bipolar or my child has an eating disorder, do you send them out to someone. >> we would start the conversation learning about what is going on with the family. what there

what the parent or other folks might have seen as changes and work together to figure out what the plan looks like whether we have the expertise to provide the support and from whether if we don't we would work with a referral or other general sys to make sure that the child gets the best care they can possibly get. >> take a quick break and we'll continue our talk about mental health right after this.

welcome back. conditions like bipolar disorder and eating disorders when do they present themselves and can they be cured? >> so, by polar disorder tends to present in the late teens more typically in the early to mid 20s and boys or young men are effected generally at earlier

when you're talking about eating disorders you're talking about in the teen years when they start to become very self-aware of their body. there's a lot of pressure. to be thin or look a certain way or look like models or people on tv but i think it's important to realize that there's a lot of people i see in my practice that have a mood disorder that doesn't neatly fit into a category. it's called unspecified mood disorder. this is people particularly in teens this say big problem that i see. these are kids that have extreme emotional ability or volatility or instability. they'll have times during the day when they feel really good and then for no clear reason later in the day they may have ceus s suicidal thoughts. they may cycle in and out of these and this is really damaging and hard for people to manage and that's more typically what you will seein

you're not going to often see that clear cut bipolar disorder. >> how do you treat them? >> you treat them very, very similarly as you would as if they have bipolar disorder so the same medications that are effective in managing to stabilize moods when somebody has bipolar disorder are also very helpful for those kids. >> and medications in concert with various kinds of evidence based therapies and helping to learn how to manage it through parent child interaction therapy that the combination of therapies and medication can often be a very powerful and successful way to help families. >> this past thursday you had a big webinar. >> we had

want to know people that have challenges health and hope is available to them so we have this event for panels and psychologists and family members and doctors, physicians, everybody, talking about how this integrated care can work gave an award to two athletes. both on the olympic swim team for speaking out and being open about their own experiences with depression and how they got through this and now that they're willing to give back they're talking about others and then encouraging young people that if they have a problem to reach out for help so the event was

and that will be archived and people can watch on the web. >> i think one of the things we want to leave people with is knowing that there's help out there. if you see your young people, for example, abugz drugs or alcohol, is that a warning sign that there may be a mental health problem. >> it could be a warning sign. it depends on the individual student and what's going on but if there's a concern that a parent or somebody has noticed in a child's behavior or something that has changed or is going on for them we would encourage them to reach out and talk to somebody whether it's professional through our agency or one of the other ones in the local areas we would encourage those families to ask the question and give that professional input and learn how to be aware of what are those signs that they might need to be looking for beyond what may be presenting right then. >> all right. thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >> thank you for being with us

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right now in europe, focus on france elections. and one journey coming to a close this morning for a small group of veterans. and he scores! >> whew! bring on game six.. the wild looks to keep its stanley cup dreams alive. it's a good one for the local hockey team and we root them on as they play again