A Year of JOY

It’s been a year of JOY. One year ago, Cook Children’s embarked on the creation of the JOY Campaign (Just breathe, Open up, You matter) with the help of TCU’s student-led Advertising and Public Relations Agency, Roxo.

The JOY Campaign is a suicide prevention communication initiative that provides hope and resources to children and families facing difficult times in their lives. The JOY Campaign has opened doors for Cook Children’s to raise even more awareness with its most recent launch of its podcast centered around mental health conversations called Raising Joy.

In March of 2021, a record amount of 43 patients were admitted for attempting suicide. After adolescent suicide attempts began to rise during the COVID-19 pandemic, Cook Children’s made it a mission to open the conversation around mental health between parents and their children. The goal of the JOY Campaign is to bring awareness to the mental health crisis that’s affecting children and teenagers.

New research from Roxo shows that parents feel lost and disconnected when attempting to discuss mental health with their young adult children and that young adults, alternatively, feel like their parents don’t understand them or what they’re experiencing. (For the survey results, click here.)

“It’s two totally different generations who are trying to find common ground and have important discussions about a really hard topic,” said Kim Brown, APR, Public Relations Manager at Cook Children’s.

Through survey research, Roxo found that some parents felt that they weren’t very educated on topics that children and teenagers are dealing with today. Many parents felt like they needed more education on topics to better understand what their children were going through so they could be a resource in the future. A few of the topics that parents felt they needed to understand better were pressures from social media and the topic of gender identity.

Roxo and Cook Children’s used this information to better understand the relationship between caregivers and their children when it comes to discussions around mental health. Cook Children’s took this research to help create Raising Joy, a podcast geared to empower caregivers to have effective and meaningful conversations with their children.

On the Raising Joy podcast, listeners can hear from licensed professional counselors and expert psychiatrists. These professionals share their own experiences and perspectives regarding the conversation around mental health, children, and families. The podcast is hosted by Kristen Pyrc, M.D., Medical Director of Psychiatry at Cook Children’s, and Wini King, Chief of Communications, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Cook Children’s.

“My hope with this podcast is that parents hear honest conversations with experts — many of whom are parents themselves — about how to best support their children. I have learned so much from these conversations, and my goal is to educate parents and community members so that children who are struggling can be identified and supported,” said Dr. Pyrc.

“It’s been such a rewarding experience creating surveys and content for Cook Children’s, especially in the realm of mental health in young adults, children, and parents,” said Erin Schoemann, Account Planner for Roxo. “The issue of mental health is so prevalent among Gen Z, especially in the context of COVID-19. It has been an honor to create content and messaging that focuses on combatting this issue that is not only personal to my age group, but also to me personally.”

Roxo continues to help Cook Children’s in its mission to spread hope and needed resources to children and families who are experiencing difficult times in their lives, as well as to remind people to live by the JOY Campaign acronym.

Just breathe.

Open up.

You matter.