Film considers children who are front-line mental health workers

Documentary explores families in which parents suffer from psychiatric disorders

Sarah would hide in her room when her father had an episode, then she would spend the rest of the day walking on eggshells.

Jessy was a teenager when her mother got sick and became “a monster that I didn’t understand. My heart was broken.”

Von, too, didn’t understand his mother’s troubles when she was hospitalized with schizophrenia, and realized “I couldn’t save her.”

All three stories are featured in the documentary I Am Still Your Child, which looks at the challenges of the growing number of young children who live with parents who suffer from psychiatric disorders.

Such children often must take on caregiving responsibilities beyond their capacities, and suffer from feelings of guilt, anger and anxiety. They might blame themselves for what is happening at home, or feel shame or embarrassment because of the stigma attached to mental illness.

The documentary highlights how children, some under the age of 12, serve as unpaid caregivers and front-line health workers. It screens Sept. 27 at the Low-Beer Memorial Lecture on youth and mental health, hosted by AMIQuébec, a group founded more than 40 years ago to help families manage the effects of mental illness through support, education, guidance and advocacy.

About one in five Canadians experiences mental illness, and about 60 per cent of them have children.

When a parent becomes ill, schoolchildren are often thrown into the role of caregivers, and the challenges are huge, said Ella Amir, AMI- Québec’s executive director.

These children are at risk of developing social, emotional and/or behavioural problems, and they need support. “And that is something we have not paid attention to,” Amir said.

According to Statistics Canada census data from 2012, nearly 1.2 million youth ages 15 to 24 were providing some level of unpaid care in 2006, an increase of 13.5 per cent from 1996.

Not all of the care is related to mental health issues, Amir said, but studies show there’s a growing proportion of youth caregivers.

“We’re talking about mental illness as a family affair,” Amir said, adding she realized not enough was being done for children here compared to in the United Kingdom, for example, which has “real policies in place” for youth caring for family members with chronic illness, disability, mental health issues, substance use, or problems related to old age.

For example, they are allowed to have a cellphone in class because someone at home is at risk of falling, among other accommodations.

Amir said by screening the film AMI- Québec aims to bring attention to an issue that continues to fly under the radar despite increasing openness by well-known public figures like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose mother Margaret Trudeau suffered from depression and bipolar disorder.

Social scientist Brenda Gladstone said that when a patient is admitted to hospital, someone should be asking: “Is there a child at home?”

For nearly two decades, Gladstone, of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research at the University of Toronto, has researched children’s experiences of having parents with mental illness.

Subjects have talked about caring for adults and siblings and trying to keep the family peace, she says. They want to be involved in the care but also to live typical student lives. Services for mentally ill children exist, but there are few services for children of ill parents, Gladstone said.

Some don’t have the words to express what is going on in their lives, while others try to hide it from their friends and teachers. They manage with little help for the support they provide, she said.

And there is the fear of triggering youth protection services.

Since first airing the documentary last year, Montreal filmmaker Megan Durnford said she has been most surprised by the number of people who have come forward to say they grew up with similar experiences. Von, Jessy and Sarah each had a parent with a diagnosed mental health condition, yet thousands of Canadians are never diagnosed, Durnford said.

The film’s title is a quote from Jessy. I’m Still Your Child brings home the idea that despite the fact that a parent has severe issues and a child has trouble dealing with it, the bond of love between them is strong, Durnford said.

“As in, ‘I’m still here, I still need you, I still believe in you despite all that is going on.’ ”