A little while ago I attended Child Psychiatry Day at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. This year’s topic was on “Preventive Interventions in Children’s Mental Health.”
A presentation particularly relevant to my work here at FAME was by Dr. Tatyana Barankin, co-author of the CAMH publication “Growing up resilient: Ways to build resilience in children and youth.” Dr. Barankin presented on “Opportunities for Prevention in Children of Mentally Ill.” She pointed to a number of studies that showed that children who have a parent with mental illness are at an increased risk of developing mental illness themselves. Many of us already know this, as a genetic factor has long been identified. But did you know the stats? It seems that when a parent has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, 74% of children may develop a mental illness. Where parental mood disorders are concerned, 25-50% of children may develop a mental illness (and not necessarily the one their parent has). The Nature vs. Nurture debate really should be referred to as the Nature AND Nurture debate, for both genetics and environmental factors are key components to one’s development and overall mental health. Dr. Barankin pointed out that 54% of children who have a parent with mental illness actually cope very well. So what separates the vulnerable child from the resilient one? Without getting too much into it here, Dr. Barankin shares that the child who is less vulnerable (and thus more resilient) develops a level of knowledge about the illness, is not engulfed nor intimidated by the illness, and sees it as something to be understood. In addition, Dr. Barankin identifies risk factors as well as protective factors in her book, and also distinguishes among individual, family, and environmental factors in enhancing resilience. Resilient families are identified as being flexible, focus on their strengths to address adversity, communicate well, etc. I’d like to write more about resilience later on.
A theme I found that ran throughout the day was the importance of the family in children’s mental health. I’d like to take this one step further and suggest that the family is important in each member’s mental health. One of Dr. Barankin’s conclusions was that the family should be included as part of the treatment. She highlighted to be particularly helpful psycho-educational cognitive approaches. So isn’t it great that we have fameKids?! The fameKids program is specifically designed based on characteristics of resilience and is an educational support group for children. And if part of prevention is education and helping to enhance resilience, then we are certainly on the right track!
Anie
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