Virginia Treatment Center for Children celebrates mental wellness

By Sathya Achia Abraham

Virginia Commonwealth University’s Virginia Treatment Center for Children celebrated mental wellness with “Helping Children Take Flight: A Call to Action,” an event that highlighted the center’s services, successes in treating patients and its plans for the future.

The event took place at the Children’s Museum of Richmond on June 9 and was attended by staff and board members, friends of the center and children who were treated there.

“Improving the mental health of children and families through clinical care, research, education and public awareness is our primary goal,” said Brian Meyer, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at VCU and executive director of the VTCC.

“As we move forward, our mission is to expand research, training and clinical care at the VTCC,” he said. “This includes a new, state-of-the art facility to accommodate for wet-labs, telemedicine capabilities and video conferencing, and recruiting talented young faculty.”

Several children and their families shared their stories of overcoming or coping with mental illnesses like severe depression and bipolar disorder. The families credited the dedicated VTCC staff and its programs for their “flight into health.”

“In the United States, approximately 15 million children suffer from mental illness, and only 20 percent receive treatment,” said Aradhana Bela Sood, M.D., professor of psychiatry and pediatrics and medical director of the VTCC.

Furthermore, only 5 percent of children receive treatment from trained professionals - the remaining 15 percent of children are usually treated by physicians and other healthcare professionals who are not specifically trained in children's mental health, she added. Other challenges include a limited capacity to deliver care and a lack of professionals trained in children’s mental health.

“Mental health is rarely discussed between young people and adults, and awareness is key,” said Sood. “A child in crisis needs to be attended to immediately and there are often delays.”

“The growing knowledge of the neurobiological and genetic bases of behavior has put mental illness firmly on par with physical illness and will go a long way in reducing stigma,” she said. “It will pave the way to explore novel and effective treatments for these disorders.”

“Unfortunately, many children do not receive the right type of interventions because of poor access to appropriate care,” she said.

To help raise money to endow new treatment programs and a new facility, “Helping Children Take Flight” birdhouses are being sold, ranging in price from $50 to $150 with all proceeds going to the VTCC.

Also at the event, guest speaker, Robert L. Ash, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Old Dominion University, talked about the optimism of ordinary people who became extraordinary inventors and flew into the annals of history.

Part of VCU’s Department of Psychiatry, the center has been providing mental health services to the children, adolescents and families of Virginia for more than 40 years. It offers a wide range of psychiatric services and works to improve the mental health of all Virginians through patient care, education and research.

For more information, call 828-1123, or visit http://www.vcuhealth.org/vtcc/index.html.