Opinion Sunday Points

Sunday Points

Point Person: Connie Wilson, head of DISD’s psychological services


A theme emerged Tuesday from “Erasing the Stigma,” a Dallas symposium on mental illness: the need to confront the challenge head-on. Dr. Connie Wilson, head of the Department of Psychological and Social Services for the Dallas Independent School District, echoes that view. Her staff identifies and provides help to students with social, emotional or academic difficulties. It also consults with teachers about problems students are having and does group work about dealing with grief, parents in prison, loss of siblings, anger management, anxiety and other common problems.

What are the biggest stresses Dallas students deal with that affect their mental health?

A lot of times, it stems from their families. A lot of our families are struggling with issues of poverty. We have a lot of parents who, at one time or another, may be single parents. A lot of our students are caring for younger siblings as their parents carry two and three jobs.

Sometimes the neighborhoods provide a lot of stressors for our children. Are they safe? Can they get from school safely to their apartment complexes? And then you have the overlay of domestic violence or alcohol abuse, or families doubling up, which is where the homeless issues come into play. You may be looking at a two-bedroom apartment that has eight or 10 people living in it.


Your role is the safety valve?

Hopefully we’re three things. One is definitely a safety valve, someone to come to when things are just more than they can deal with. But probably more important are the second two, and that is giving them some coping skills so that when they are on their own, they have some tools they can fall back on. So when they are feeling very stressed they can find an outlet fairly immediately. And the third is getting them to the resources they need should they need something more intense.


The children with profound mental health difficulties — how do they come your way?

Usually the first tier of defense is the counselors, and there are counselors in almost every school. The second tier would be my staff. The third step becomes our youth and family centers. They are a collaboration between the district and the Parkland Health and Hospital System, and there are 10 of them. The district side provides family therapy and psychiatric services, and Parkland provides physical health. The mental health services are free to our families.


For some kids mental health screening might only come in school, or not at all. How daunting a responsibility is that?

It’s huge, because we do know that for many of our children we are the first responders for mental health. We are the first people who say, “You know, this child is struggling, and we need to provide them some services so that they can not only continue on with their lives with good mental health but so that they can also concentrate on their academics.”


So how do you destigmatize mental health problems for young people?

If you think about what everyone sees in the media, what everyone reads in the media, it’s very, very difficult for people to acknowledge a mental health issue without someone else assuming, “Oh, this is a horrible, dangerous person,” which is not an accurate representation at all.

There was a time when people wouldn’t talk about having cancer. People were afraid: “My goodness, if I know someone with cancer, it might be contagious.” Well, no it’s not. I think where we have to go as a city, as a nation, is that just as over time we began talking about how you need to take care of your physical health … we need to talk about how we take care of our mental health.

How do we recognize that and acknowledge that everyone has mental health? If we do, it becomes more safe to talk about, “Well, now I have a mental illness.”


If you could have the resources to put together the best support for mental health, what would things look like?

My ideal would be, initially, that children would have engaged parents. They would have engaged, enthusiastic teachers who were excited to see them every day and how they progressed. They would have safe neighborhoods where people looked after each other. And as they progressed through adolescence there would be adults in their lives who understood brain development. Research in the last 10, 15 years shows that during adolescence, we’ve got another spurt of brain growth. … A lot of times, the things adults want to say are bad things happening in adolescence are actually very explainable.

Overlaid on this is the understanding that there are biologically based diseases that are causing mental illness, and that there are remedies for that.


What gives you greatest cause for optimism?

The resiliency of children. When we see what they’re dealing with and that they come to school day after day and are eager to engage with people who are willing to reach out to them — that makes me very optimistic.


This Q&A was conducted and condensed by editorial writer Rodger Jones. His email address is rmjones@dallasnews.com. Connie Wilson’s email address is CoWilson@dallasisd.org.

How to get help

Contact Crisis Line: 972-233-2233

Teen Help Line: 972-233-8336

Contact Spanish crisis line (Fridays 6-10 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m.-3 p.m.): 972-233-2428

The Family Place 24-hour crisis line: 214-941-1991

Suicide & Crisis Center of North Texas: 214-828-1000

Adapt Community Solutions & Mobile Crisis Line: 1-866-260-8000


the challenge

Highlights from the Tuesday symposium “Erasing the Stigma: Mental Illness and the Search for Solutions,” sponsored by The Dallas Morning News, KERA and the city of Dallas:


On confronting mental illness: “Every so often it leaps out of private lives and bursts on the streets of our cities and towns with heinous murders, heartbreaking suicides and abnormal behavior which we bystanders sit back and say: ‘What? What just happened? Why?’ That’s what happened to me in the days following the Newtown tragedy.”

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings


On being alert for signs: “We get a second chance every day, Texas. We lose a young person to suicide every day, one per day. Parents and schools, everyone who touches the life of a teenager has an opportunity to learn the signs, learn the symptoms of depression — what does that look like in a teenager? — to be aware, to be watchful.”

Vanita Halliburton, president of the Grant Halliburton Foundation, named for her son, who committed suicide


On diagnosing major mental illness: “These are brain disorders. They are illnesses. They are just like … hypertension, or diabetes, and there are medical, biologic treatments for them. … There are changes even measured on functional MRI scans, on CT scans, on PET scans that show abnormal structure and function in the brain. This is a revolution compared to where we were 40 or 50 years ago.”

Dr. Preston Wiles, child psychiatrist and professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center


On growing up with undiagnosed major depression: “Actually, wanting to be treated for a mental illness is not something that any teenager would want. And quite frankly, people are cruel. Particularly teenagers. … I became the crazy guy in the neighborhood. It really dogged me all the way through college. Every time something would go well, I would be anxious about it getting bad again, because I knew it would.”

State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston


On males and mental illness: “The aspect of culture I would change is the notion that stoicism is the only way to go. … It is OK, appropriate and manly to seek help if your functioning or your family’s functioning is being challenged. It does not make you less tough.”

Matt Roberts, president, Mental Health America of Greater Dallas

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