The briefing was led by the TeenScreen National Center’s executive director, Laurie Flynn, and featured Sharon Smith as keynote speaker. Smith, along with her husband former Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR), have long supported legislation for youth mental health checkups and were integral in passing the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act for suicide prevention in memory of their son. The panel of speakers also included Dr. John Genrich, a pediatrician from Colorado Springs, who offers mental health checkups as part of his regular medical practice, Dr. Jacqueline Grupp-Phelan from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital who is evaluating usage of such checkups in Cincinnati’s busy emergency department, and Dr. James McGhee, also a pediatrician, of Henderson, Nevada, who is screening adolescents in his office. These physicians spoke about their individual experiences in offering mental health checkups to adolescents and how this practice improves early identification of mental illness and could result in increased cost-effectiveness in health care settings.

On Thursday, March 19, leaders in the mental health community and in adolescent primary care came together for a Capitol Hill briefing themed: Making Mental Health Checkups a Primary Care.

Access TeenScreen’s Flickr account to view the photos taken at the Congressional Hill Briefing.