‘It’s critical’: Report calls for more mental health and addictions support for children

The Saskatchewan Advocate for Children and Youth unveiled a report Tuesday urging the provincial government to offer more services and resources for children around the province suffering from mental health and addictions issues.

The report includes 14 cross-government recommendations after research was done involving almost 500 participants from across the province.

The report’s recommendations include:

• Implementing youth advisory councils within the Ministry of Health and Health Authorities;
• Decreasing wait times for mental health and addictions services to meet or exceed public expectations;
• Funding and implementing more mental health counsellors and Indigenous elders/knowledge keepers in schools;
• Expanding outreach-based mental health and addictions services;
• Funding and providing in-home support services to families who require this service to maintain care for their children at home;
• Developing “middle-tier” therapeutic residential services for children and youth;
• Evaluating and enhancing current detox and addictions treatment models;
• Improving transitions from child and youth to adult mental health and addictions services;
• Implementing the electronic mental health and addictions information system;
• Moving all child-serving ministries to an integrated service-delivery model to enhance communication and co-ordination of services and achieve better outcomes for mental health and addictions services; and,
• Developing a province-wide “children’s strategy” to mitigate the social and environmental factors that negatively impact the well-being of children and youth.

The advocate, Dr. Lisa Broda, says children and teens are at a crisis point in trying to access and receive mental health and addictions services in Saskatchewan.

“Over the last two decades, my office has received a myriad of concerns regarding the extreme challenges children, caregivers and families face in accessing mental health and addiction services,” Broda said. “Getting services to children earlier, it’s critical for better outcomes.”

Broda says the scope of the research work included travelling across the province to urban, rural, remote and northern communities to speak to people about their experiences receiving services, or working in the mental health and addiction system.

“We spoke to 491 participants that included children, youth, caregivers, families, professionals and officials in the health system and other child-serving systems, which led to our findings,” she said.

The advocate’s report provided staggering numbers on how many children surveyed had struggled greatly with their mental health, including 38 per cent who saw a decline in their mental health over the last year.

The report also showed that 24 per cent of youth surveyed had considered suicide in the last year, as well as 10 per cent who had attempted it at some point.

According to data from the Saskatchewan Coroners Service, the suicide rate in the province is down, but psychiatrists reiterate that it’s still a very significant issue in the province.

Some data collected in the Saskatchewan Advocate for Children and Youth’s report. (Desperately Waiting report/Submitted)

Broda was joined by some young adults who shared their stories regarding the challenges they have faced with their mental health in their teen years, and the lengths they had to go to access support.

“Many of the themes that emerged from this report were things I experienced throughout my younger years and, in fact, continue to experience as I transition into adulthood,” Alexis Epp said. “Whether it’s support directly through the health-care system or the education system, the resources are limited and extremely inaccessible.

“These recommendations must be taken seriously. As the world changes, so do the needs of youth. Their needs aren’t what yours were when you were younger, or even what mine was a short time ago. The needs of the youth continue to change, yet the systems and structures that are in place have remained the same for decades.”

Epp says the system in place now is very reactive rather than proactive, adding people routinely feel more like a problem than a person who needs support.

“For me, I had to choose between my education and my health, and in the process, both declined rapidly,” she said. “(With) access to support earlier in my mental health journey, the severity of my mental illnesses would have been drastically different.

“I’m begging that the youth of today and tomorrow do not have to struggle as I did.”

Epp said it isn’t unusual for people to be struggling at home for very long periods of time before being able to receive any sort of support. In rural communities, those issues are amplified due to an even greater restriction of resources.

“Something that would have helped is having more accessibility for counsellors, or even having them in school,” she added. “If the government would have done this a long time ago, I know of some friends that would still be alive.”

Evan Davidson is another person who saw his life flipped upside down because of mental illness.

He says it’s vital that these struggles get treated with urgency like anything else.

“We need a middle-tier care system for those who don’t reach those extremes,” Davidson said. “It can be really hard to get help for basic mental health problems like anxiety and depression.

“When you need significant help, there’s an overflow of people trying to see psychiatrists, people who probably could have gone through some middle-tier care system, allowing professionals to see the right people and not have such a stress load.”

Davidson and Epp agree the support systems in place now are severely lacking room to help people in the “middle ground,” adding the system makes you feel like you are either fine, or critical, with no in between.

Broda says it’s important that mental health and addictions services are no longer pushed to the side, adding it’s time there was some significant change in order to ensure fewer people die as a result of the struggles they are dealing with.

“We must not be satisfied with the state of mental health and addictions service provision as it is today,” she said. “After decades of the same issues, we cannot expect outcomes to change without significant investments and for the system to immediately prioritize the well-being of children.”

Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Everett Hindley said the government is listening loud and clear.

“We’re going to be taking a look at all these and having those discussions with our partnering ministries here in the provincial government to see what is the best way to address this,” he said. “We’ll be taking a good, close, hard look at all of the recommendations included in the report and acting on them, and making some decisions on them as quickly as possible.

“I think we’ve all identified that we need to make it easier for people to be able to access services, regardless of whether it’s mental health, addictions, or any health-care service to make it more seamless for people.”