HEAT ADVISORY Click county for more information: Creek, Nowata, Osage, Pawnee, Rogers, Tulsa, Wagoner, Washington        

When her daughter was tiny, Jackie McKenzie knew something was amiss to make her growl and cry instead of coo and smile.

"Thirty years ago I was begging my pediatrician to listen to me. I knew there was something wrong with my 3-month-old baby,” she said.

McKenzie, 50, talked about raising a daughter with mental illness Thursday as part of Children's Mental Health Awareness Day at the Capitol.

Jacquelyn Shipp, director of the Office of Children, Youth and Families of the state Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, said programs that support the entire family and offer individualized care for those with mental health or substance abuse problems are the most effective.

The day highlighted Systems of Care programs. The treatment method integrates the agencies and people who come in contact with someone who has a severe mental illness. The group creates an individual plan and goals for the patient and family.

Systems of Care began in Kay County in 1999. Thirty-six programs are now in 40 counties and serve about 900 families at any one time. A $14 million federal grant and state money have paid for the programs since 2002.

Better integration of services has helped a 9-year-old Oklahoma City girl, whose name the state Department of Human Services asked not be used because she is in a foster home.

McKenzie, an Oklahoma City resident, said comprehensive, "wraparound” care of the kind promoted Thursday is like an interview process: People come into the home, get to know everyone's strengths and weaknesses and pull it all together.

Keith Pirtle, director of Systems of Care for the state mental health department, described how caseworkers often are "passing each other in the driveway” when assisting children with the most severe problems.

Many children with severe mental problems will end up in the mental health or justice systems at some point, he said.

"Unfortunately, sometimes when you go into the system it's hard to get out,” he said.

The benefit of having wraparound care and family support can be the difference between keeping a child and losing custody of the child, he said.