Gifts in Action

Rod and Janice Reynolds believe so strongly in the valuable services the Institute of Living (IOL) provides residents of all ages in our region that they made a generous gift to bring attention to the Institute in support of programs to benefit children and youth.

They made their gift, a lead gift, to the IOL’s Depression Initiative in the hope that it will benefit adolescent psychiatry.

“Our focus has always been on children and youth,” said Janice. “What attracted our support are the many mental health issues with young people today, so many on medications, so many with emotional problems and so many being diagnosed. These issues seem to be starting at an earlier age than most people realize.”

Studies indicate that depression is a highly-prevalent disorder that affects 15-20 percent of children and teenagers. Yet very little research has attempted to understand neural dysfunction in pediatric depression, or to identify biomarkers that predict how well depressed youth respond to different treatments.

“We live in a society where people don’t hesitate to mention that their child has a physical ailment and goes to the hospital for treatment,” added Rod. “On the other hand, they are reluctant to mention that their child is suffering from and being treated for depression – and insurance doesn’t treat it very nicely, either.

“That’s our motivation, to help create awareness, enhance clinical services to treat today’s problems, and have an impact on research to discover new treatments for the future.”

Janice added, “I think people are more willing to support areas benefiting people with physical challenges because the pain is obvious, but they don’t realize that emotional issues also cause real pain in people’s lives, too.”

Their gift is helping to bridge the knowledge gap in pediatric depression by integrating the expert clinical services already offered at the IOL with its cutting-edge neuroscience research infrastructure.

This integration will establish a research-based clinic for pediatric mood disorder care by embedding research staff within existing clinical services and support a series of clinically-meaningful studies of pediatric depression using fMRI, genetic and other neuroscience techniques. These projects will evaluate new treatments and work toward realizing a “personalized medicine” approach to care.

The Reynolds, a local altruistic couple, agreed to share their story as “another way to make a gift” and encourage others to join this initiative and enable the benefits of this initiative to be even greater.

Giving back to the community is nothing new for the Reynolds. Some years ago, they created a therapeutic horseback-riding program called Equistrides. At one point, the year-round program hosted 160 riders a week. The total different disabilities represented by the riders numbered more than 100.

“We had a lot of riders with emotional and cognitive disorders, some sent to us from the IOL,” noted Janice. “So we got to see a lot of different combinations of symptoms in children of all ages. We became more aware of the large number of adolescents needing care, and more aware of the great work being done at the IOL that could help meet those needs.”

Through their gift to the Depression Initiative, Rod and Janice are hoping that many more people will begin to see the needs, too.

To learn more about the Depression Initiative at the IOL, visit www.InstituteOfLiving.org/DepressionInitiative.