Mental health groups join forces to help youth

Television and radio show host Stéphane Bellavance says he’s lucky his family is doing well, but should something go amiss, he would love for his boys to have a door to knock on, a door like Fondation Jeunes en tête.

Jeunes en tête is the result of two organizations joining forces to support youth in the field of mental health, said spokesman Bellavance, noting that the two groups — the Mental Illness Foundation and the Fondation Québec Jeunes — currently help more than 70,000 children each year.

“Young people who are struggling are not always visible,” he said. “We wanted to boost our efforts to help them.”

Launched Tuesday morning, the new Fondation Jeunes en tête will provide financial support to 30 organizations with a mission to assist youngsters, age 11 to 18, who suffer from or are at risk for mental illness.

Over the past five years, these groups distributed $3.3 million to community groups involved in about 300 inner-city schools across the province, handling problems such as poverty, addiction, bullying and dropping-out and promoting youth health and well-being.

“Unity is strength, we will be much stronger together,” said Yves Lamontagne, psychiatrist and president of the Mental Illness Foundation he founded in 1980. The group’s program Solidarity for Mental Health, also known as Partners for Life, has touched more than a million high school youth, he said, and has been credited in two studies for helping to reduce Quebec’s suicide rate over several years from 2000 to 2007.

Fondation Jeunes en tête will continue the same awareness program in schools, Lamontagne said.

Youth are under a lot of pressure, Lamontagne said. “Taking action with young people is undoubtedly the best way to prepare a better future for our society.”

Quebec has the highest high school dropout rate in Canada and Je Passe Partout is an organization working with schools to reverse that trend. Je Passe Partout gets $20,000 from the foundation to run its after-school program in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough where 40 per cent of children live in poor, single-parent homes.

Many studies have established links between poverty, homelessness and mental health.

“We help children with their homework and facilitate contact between parents and the school,” program coordinator Christina Tzournavelis said. “Some parents can’t read. It’s hard to help your child with something you don’t know yourself.”