New HCPC Youth Care Program Opens

At the grand opening of a new youth care program at The University of Texas Harris County Psychiatric Center (HCPC), keynote speaker Elizabeth McIngvale, 19, spoke about the importance of getting treatment for mental illness.

Elizabeth McIngvale

McIngvale, the daughter of local business leader Jim “Mattress Mac” McIngvale, spoke about her struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder. She is active in promoting mental health awareness and treatment.

The new Residential Treatment Center will accommodate as many as 20 mentally ill youths, ages 12 through 17, who are unable to live at home, in foster care or in other environments.

More than 4,000 children and adolescents are currently in Harris County Children’s Protective Services custody. Of these, more than 50 percent suffer from mental/emotional difficulties, substance abuse problems and/or learning disabilities. Due to their mental illness, many of these children can not be placed in adoptive or foster care.

“The ultimate goal is to provide these children with the intensive treatment they need so that they can move into a less restrictive home environment, such as foster care,” said Lois Moore, HCPC chief administrator.

The center is staffed by certified mental health professionals, under the direction of faculty of the UT Medical School at Houston Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, headed by Robert W. Guynn, M.D., who is also executive director of HCPC.

Others at the ceremony included State Representative John Davis, who was instrumental in co-sponsoring a bill to mandate mental health care for those under 19; Harris County Children’s Protective Services Director George Ford; U.S. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee; and UT Health Science Center President James T. Willerson, M.D.

By Geri Konigsberg, UT Harris County Psychiatric Center