Golden Globe Award-winning actress and bestselling children’s book author Jamie Lee Curtis will join the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) as honorary national spokesperson to celebrate the sixth annual National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day on May 3 in Washington, DC. This year’s national event, “Building Resilience in Young Children Dealing with Trauma,” pays tribute to children who experienced trauma very early in life, but later recovered and are now thriving.
It is estimated that 26 percent of children in the United States will experience or witness …

Guest Post By: National Institute of Mental Health, Office of Science Policy, Planning and Communication
On May 3, 2011 the National Institute of Mental Health will join with SAMHSA to celebrate National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day.  Research has shown that the majority of mental disorders begin in childhood and adolescence – and that if we can diagnose and treat early, it can increase chances for a positive outcome.
There are mental disorders that we associate with childhood, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). But 50 percent of …

It is difficult to imagine, but even very young children can experience trauma that has a long-term impact on their mental and behavioral health. Research shows that when exposed to traumatic events such as witnessing violence or natural disasters, children as young as 18 months can develop serious psychological problems later in life. You might wonder how you can help get the word out about young children and trauma.  SAMHSA’s National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day 2011 provides an ideal opportunity to participate in local events to raise awareness …

Written By: Larke Huang, Director Office of Behavioral Health Equity
In the past decade, key policy reports have documented disparities in behavioral health for diverse racial and ethnic populations in the United States. The Surgeon General’s report Mental Health: Culture, Race and Ethnicity (2001), the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (2003), and the IOM Reports, Unequal Treatment and Race, Ethnicity and Language Data: Standardization for Health Care Quality Improvement (2009) have called for a national approach to reducing disparities. While the prevalence rates of behavioral disorders are generally similar …

In the spring of 2004, SAMHSA formed the Planning Group on Iraq Mental Health to help Iraq’s Ministry of Health re-establish behavioral health services in Iraq.  SAMHSA sponsored two Action Planning Conferences on Iraq Mental Health in 2005 and 2006 in Amman, Jordan and Cairo, Egypt bringing together mental health professionals from throughout Iraq to jointly plan behavioral health services, where they identified substance abuse, forensics, services for children and adolescents, and on-going trauma, as the country’s behavioral health priorities.
Beginning in 2008, SAMHSA and Iraq have sponsored the Iraq-SAMHSA Initiative …