TEENS NEED MENTAL HEALTH SOONER
Métro newspaper




By: David P. Ball Metro Published on Thu Aug 17 2017 06:47:00

British Columbia needs to improve its mental health supports for teenagers, particularly in schools, according to four in five participants in a three-week mental health survey.

The informal online poll, created by the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) B.C., has garnered 700 responses as part of the non-profit's ongoing B4Stage4 campaign to boost earlier responses to British Columbians with mental illness.

On the question of which demographic of the population should be prioritized for interventions, 80 per cent chose adolescents. And schools were listed as the most important choice of screening location, garnering a full half of responses.

"I'm not surprised, because we know youth are a high-risk group," explained CEO Bev Gutray in a phone interview. "But if we can get to them early, and they can get mental health care early on, many can recover fully.

"Unattended mental illnesses, however, often end up continue into adulthood. Why don't we do that work early on?"

At the campaign's launch last October, held in CMHA's Vancouver offices, 25-year-old M.J. Ziemann spoke out about her struggle since she was a teenager with mental health issues.

"I had actually applied for help," she told Metro in an interview at the time. "It wasn't until I was very, very, very ill and needed to be hospitalized that the wheels got turning."

Somewhere between one-in-four to one-in-five British Columbians are affected by a mental illness or addiction, Gutray said.

Since the organization's Help Shape our Future form went public in late July, more than 700 people have taken part. Although it's no scientific opinion poll by any measure, Gutray hopes it offers the new NDP government — and its newly created Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions — a better sense of what people affected by mental illness and substance use think.

She said the only thing that surprised her in the survey results so far is that so many respondents said they support whatever policies the "evidence" shows are most effective, instead of any particular approach or treatment model.

"We at CMHA seriously believe the public needs to raise their voices on these isssues," Gutray said. "That's the only way we're going to truly get investment into prevention and early intervention.

"If people are never asked to put their hand up and say, 'This is what I want to support,' all we'll ever get is crisis care."

Gutray said the more people who participate in the survey, which is still open, the greater the impact among policy-makers — and she particularly hopes more will take part in the Fraser Valley and northern B.C. "where we know that mental health services are very different."

"We want to make sure we can get a provincial voice in actually formulating mental health care and respond to what the new government puts out," she said. "We really need a public voice in this."

Hosted by the CMHA B.C., the Help Shape our Future survey is still open for your feedback on how B.C. could improve its citizens' mental wellness. It takes five minutes to fill out.

Share your thoughts on the CMHA B.C.'s website.