"Charlie Bartlett" Film Raises Controversy and Awareness of Teen Mental Health Issues

February 22, 2008

  Charlie Barlett, a film about a teenager who positions himself as his high school’s resident “psychiatrist,” dishing out both advice and prescriptions, opened Friday, February 22. Edgewood's Dr. Robin Randall hopes the film will raise awareness of the overlooked and worsening mental health crisis facing American high school students today.

Edgewood operates the Grace Magill Project, an innovative pilot program working with Bay Area high schools to meeting the mental health needs of teenagers.

Dr. Robin Randall, MD, is Medical Director of Edgewood Center for Children and Families in San Francisco, a clinical faculty member at the University of San Francisco California (UCSF) and Site Training Director for the UCSF Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Training Program. He was one of the first child and adolescent psychiatrists to come to the aid of children impacted by Hurricane Katrina.

“While the premise of the film is clearly conceived for comic impact, it does shed light on the fact that there are a lot of high school students in our nation who are struggling with very serious issues, too often alone," said Dr. Randall. "As a society we are largely failing teens when it comes to meeting their psychological and spiritual needs, especially those with acute problems. Obviously, it’s not appropriate for someone without training to dispense professional advice [as the character in the film does], but if Charlie Bartlett can get people talking about adolescent wellbeing and mental health, I’ll be thrilled.”

There remains a stigma around psychological health and mental illness in American high schools. Tragically, an estimated two-thirds of all young people with mental health problems are not getting the help they need. Here are more facts that reveal the scope of the problem:

• Suicide is the third-leading cause of death for young people ages 15 to 24.
• It’s getting worse. The latest government figures show a surprising increase in youth suicides after a decade of decline. The suicide rate climbed 18 percent from 2003 to 2004.
  Many children and adolescents have periods of emotional stress that would benefit from short-term treatment — include grieving the recent loss of a loved one or improving family relationships.
• Researchers have found that half of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14. Despite effective treatments, there are long delays — sometimes decades — between first onset of symptoms and when people seek and receive treatment. An untreated mental disorder can lead to a more severe, more difficult to treat illness, and to the development of co-occurring mental illnesses.

 

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