{Video opens with Natalie Henry talking on-camera. She’s a depression patient and parent. Photos of her as a college student and later as a mother of two then fad in and out.}

Natalie Henry: My journey with depression has been a long road.

Narrator: Natalie Henry is sharing her more than two-decades long struggle with the hope that others listening will no longer suffer in silence.

Henry: I think having education and awareness back then…would have been a whole different ballgame.

{Generic video of high school students is edited in.}

Narrator: As a high-schooler, she was among the approximately one in 11 children who experience some form of depression by 14 years old.

Henry: I felt very misunderstood.

{Photos of Henry with her children are shown before 12-year-old Grace Henry is shown on-camera. Grace is Natalie’s daughter.}

Narrator: Now as a mother, she’s making sure her children view depression just like any other disease that can be treated.

Grace Henry: My mom is the best person ever and I just love her so much, and I just want to learn about what she deals with every day.

Narrator: 12-year-old Grace Henry is volunteering in a leading-edge research project at UT Southwestern’s Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care.  The 10-year exploratory study, spearheaded by Dr. Madhukar Trivedi, aims to uncover clinical, psychological and biological factors that give rise to mood disorders.

{Video footage of Dr. Madhukar Trivedi plays. He’s the director of UT Southwestern’s Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care.}

Dr. Madhukar Trivedi: Like other medical diseases, we really need to start thinking about prevention and early identification and not wait until there’s a crisis.

Narrator: His center’s Risk and Resilience Network is working on improving treatments for depression and developing useful diagnostic tools such as brain and blood tests. The network is also sending trained counselors into school classrooms to decrease the alarming rise in teen depression.

{Jana Hancock appears on-camera. She’s the Director of Guidance and Family Education Services for the Plano Independent School District.}

Jana Hancock: In Plano ISD, we have almost 55,000 students.

Narrator: Plano ISD is one of a growing number of school districts in North Texas benefiting from an interactive new mental health curriculum through UT Southwestern.

Hancock: I would love to see it in every school. I would love to see every student exposed to this kind of learning.

{Video begins to play of high-school students demonstrating what happens in the YAM program.}

Narrator: The program is called Youth Aware of Mental Health or YAM. This programmatic video gives a glimpse into the experiential learning that occurs over five, one-hour classes.

Hancock: I think the role-play has brought something different to the table. This program has given them even more tools to recognize when there’s a problem.

{Video fads to black before a black-and-white shot of a classroom pans up and dissolves into flashing police lights.}

Narrator: Since April of 2016, Plano ISD has tragically been hit by three teen suicides. Suicide is the 2^nd leading cause of deaths among teens just behind accidents.

Hancock: We were contacted by UT Southwestern right during that same time-frame and we were reassessing everything we were doing and looking what we could add to our program.

{Bryan McCord appears on-camera. He’s the K-12 Health and P.E. Coordinator for the Plano Independent School District.}

Brian McCord: It’s a commitment that we’ve made as a district knowing that we currently have a curriculum that we follow, but we’re going to find a place for this because we value it.

Narrator: The program, only in place in Plano since this past fall, is already making a difference.

Trivedi: We’re looking at the impact of this program. Is their literacy about anxiety, depression going up? Are they seeking more help? And, in the process, we are also identifying rates of depression and anxiety that we undiagnosed, and we’re finding a number of people who were not diagnosed who are now getting diagnosed and seeking help.

Narrator: Proof that education really can change lives.

Natalie Henry: If people can get to where they can talk about it and it’s not a weakness…that it is something that you can get help for…that would be phenomenal.

{Video ends with more shots of students participating in the YAM Program before fading to black.}