Kinaxis Salutes National Children's Mental Health Awareness Week and Supports the Colbeth Clinic

Chicago, IL and Ottawa, Canada (PRWEB) May 6, 2008 -- Kinaxis Inc (http://www.kinaxis.com/)., today pays tribute to National Children's Mental Health Awareness Week (May 4-10), as a proud supporter of the Colbeth Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic (http://www.psych.uic.edu/clinical/child.htm)and recent sponsor of its annual Gala fundraising event.

Kinaxis was first introduced to the clinic, which is part of the Institute of Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Medicine, through its CEO, Doug Colbeth (http://www.kinaxis.com/supply-chain-solutions-company/team/president-douglas-colbeth.cfm). He and his wife Margaret established the clinic in 2000 with a mission to raise awareness, provide early diagnosis and offer effective treatments of biological brain disorders for inner city children. These diseases include; bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia and autism.

As a supporter of this cause, Kinaxis contributions to the clinic have come from both corporate and employee donations. Most recently, Kinaxis was a sponsor of the 4th Annual Colbeth Clinic Gala fundraiser, where more than $1.25 million was raised in total through private gifts and ticket sales. The event's keynote speaker was Dr. Bennett Leventhal, who works with the Colbeth Clinic and is an internationally renowned expert in the area of autism. In addition, the Gala honored Jim Ryan, the former State Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate as the first recipient of the Colbeth Clinic Changing Minds award. This award was given in recognition of his courage to share his personal story on how biological brain diseases have impacted his family.

In 2007, the Colbeth Clinic provided more than 16,000 patient visits. The clinic is unique in that world leading researchers work side by side with passionate clinicians to provide state-of-the-art diagnostics and treatment. While the clinic primarily serves youth in the Chicago area, its research and lobbying activities have an impact that extends well beyond the city limits. For example, Colbeth Clinic experts have testified before Congress petitioning for healthcare parity of these diseases - to be consistent with healthcare coverage for other physical illnesses. Thanks to these and countless others in the field, there is active legislation in process to resolve the discrepancy of coverage given to brain disorders as compared to other physical inflictions.

Raising awareness and erasing the stigma associated with mental health disorders was, and continues to be one of the key objectives of the clinic.

"Like millions of teens, I personally experienced the quiet desperation of severe depression," says Doug Colbeth. "Fortunately, I was able to get excellent treatment before something tragic happened. This is precisely what we want to provide to others, especially those who may not have the financial means or access to best-of-class mental health services. I believe we must come out of the shadows to share our personal experiences and let our stories resonate with those among us who are, or know of someone that is suffering. Erasing the stigma will increase funding for the cause, encourage additional talented people to enter the field, and most importantly, encourage patients to seek treatments earlier. Only when we acknowledge how common mental health disorders are, can we make real progress in the treatment of these diseases."

Doug's motivation to make a difference is shared by his corporate family at Kinaxis.

"Doug's enthusiasm for this cause has been persuasive and compelling; and as a result, Kinaxis has come on board," says Randy Littleson, vice president of marketing for Kinaxis. "His leadership not only as CEO, but through his involvement in the clinic has been an example to us all."

For more information please visit:

www.colbethclinic.org

Doug Colbeth (http://www.kinaxis.com/supply-chain-solutions-company/team/president-douglas-colbeth.cfm)

National Children's Mental Health Awareness Week (http://childrensmentalhealthawarenessweek.org/)as declared by The National Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health. (http://www.ffcmh.org/)

About Kinaxis

Kinaxis delivers an on-demand Response Management service that enables customer-focused companies to achieve breakthroughs in operating performance and customer satisfaction by rapidly and more profitably responding to constant changes in demand, supply and product. Kinaxis RapidResponse combines personal alerting, multi-enterprise visibility, collaborative "what-if" analysis and rapid decision support to empower front-line supply chain staff with tools for risk tradeoff and response to daily changes inside the sales and operations planning (S&OP) horizon. Global leaders such as Casio, Honeywell, Qualcomm, Raytheon and Toshiba use Kinaxis RapidResponse to establish superior responsiveness within their fulfillment networks and supply chains and gain competitive advantage. For more information, visit the Kinaxis web site at www.kinaxis.com or the company's blog at blog.kinaxis.com.

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