Mental health initiative helps teens in schools
To address a shortage of counselling for youth, program trains nurses
Last year was a tumultuous one for young Kitchener resident Kayla. After many years of living with her grandmother, she moved back in with her mother, changed cities and schools and, after months of selfharming, wound up in hospital. She was only 11. By January, Kayla (a pseudonym to protect her privacy) was back at home, but refused to take her medication regularly after being teased for it by her peers and even members of her extended family. “She didn’t even want to live here,” says her mother. “She literally packed her bag and lived with a friend. She was gone for three weeks.” Anew provincial nursing program couldn’t have come at a better time for Kayla and her family. In February, the 7th-grader started meeting regularly with one of the new mental health and addiction nurses assigned to work with each school board throughout Ontario. “Since then, we’ve literally done a 180. She’s like an entirely different kid,” her mother says. Over the past three months, since meeting with the nurse at school, Kayla has been taking her meds every day. And, most importantly, she stopped cutting herself. “She’s so easy to talk to,” Kayla says of the nurse. “She’s so good at talking and giving advice and helping you with your worries.” Kayla’s treatment is complex, as most cases of child and youth mental health and addictions are. She has started counselling sessions with her mother and attends a weekly group for aboriginal girls. Her personal challenges are complicated and her care will contiinue. The $93-million outlay by the province to bolster support for mental health and addictions is helping to streamline care for young people such as Kayla. Last year, Community Care Access Centres (CCACs) received funding to hire 144 nurses to serve the province’s 72 district school boards. Training began in September and, since then, the nurses have been consulting with their respective boards, other community services and any social workers or counsellors already working with some of the schools. In recent months, some nurses have started working directly with students.
“Adult mental health gets pushed to the edge, but children’s mental health just isn’t on the radar,” says Education Minsiter Liz Sandals said.
“We know that 70 per cent of mental health issues first present with children and youth. That’s the most likely time to have the early onset . . . Nurses have the capacity to deal with those early interventions.”
The new program is part of the province’s larger mental health and addictions strategy, Open Minds, Healthy Minds, which launched in 2011, promising to focus on children and youth for its first three years.
Many school boards have already identified gaps in care where the new nurses are stepping in — providing support for children after hospitalization; educating teachers and guidance counsellors on behaviours to expect, especially when children are on medication; or bringing expertise when dealing with a crossover of mental health and addiction, for instance.
There have been intense training sessions for the nurses to try to cover the number of issues the field covers, including eating disorders, depression, attention-deficit disorder and anxiety, one of the most common challenges for youth.
The support comes at a time when many parents and educators are sensitive to the worrying cases of bullying and teen suicides.
Each school board will set different priorities and define the nurses’ roles depending on whether they have social workers or mental health teams already, or children with specific needs.