RBC releases it's national survey on Mental Health

Yesterday morning I was reading the Toronto Star and found an article authored by Barbara Turnbull titled "Kids, Parents are not discussing mental health concerns RBC poll finds".

Basically what the article speaks to is that children don't confide in their parents when they are experiencing issues around their own problems.  The poll also reflected that more than 50% of parents don't approach their children to talk to them about mental health.  After reading this article I sat and pondered for a while and thought to myself there was definitely something missing, both by RBC and by the author.  There is a much larger landscape here, and it is my opinion, that we can't see the forest for the proverbial trees.  Let's step back and take a look at what I'm speaking to.  

Starting with the most obvious piece of information that just about everyone in this country has heard:  One in five Canadians are impacted or affected by mental health issues (1).  If we take that statistic into consideration then I would suggest that there are many parents out there who are personally or directly affected by their own mental illness issues and or addictions.  If a parent is struggling with these issues, with or without assistance, are they really equipped to speak with their children, particularly younger children, in addressing mental illness?



There is so much stigma and fear associated to mental illness and addictions that many people don't access support and even those with programs such as Employment Assistance will not utilize them for fear of being discriminated against.  They suffer in silence, often untreated and worse, they suffer alone. Such is the cruel stigma of mental illness.  How is it then we expect a parent to address their own children's issues, if they themselves are struggling to cope?  Let's just pile another layer of guilt on to people with serious illnesses who  are not meeting the needs of their children and families.  The silence is deafening.

Here is another perspective to take in to consideration.  If a parent is displaying erratic behaviour, suffering from depression, being hospitalized, using or abusing medication or drugs, can any of us imagine what the perspective on this situation would be like for a child.  Many parents are just hanging on to their own health by a thread let alone trying to find a way to reach out to their child to try and make some sort of sense of all of this. It is a cruel world.  

Stepping back even further gives us another view.  It has become increasingly apparent to us that there are whole generations of children all over this country who are raising a parent impacted by a mental illness and or addictions.  These are children, who are often completely self-caring and in many cases, caring for a sibling.  In effect, many of these children take over the family and parenting duties, literally stripping away from them their childhood. I say this, not to be critical towards parents who are struggling to cope with mental illness and addictions, I say this to poke a stick in to the back of a system that is completely failing these children and these families.  There are very little supports put in to place to assist or support children who are coping in this situation.

We at FAME have seen this first hand.  We have met the 10 year old who manages his Mother's medication.  We've met the child who tends to her siblings, buying the groceries, feeding them, cleaning them and even doing the family banking.  We have watched children who hide away their situation from Children's Aid because they fear being removed from the home and separated from their siblings.  

The other factor we need to take in to consideration is that children who live in this environment are more prone and more likely to develop their own mental health issues.  We recognize the genetic factor in mental illness but we also cannot eliminate the environmental factor in which a child grows up in.  At moments for us, it is a chicken and egg discussion.  Regardless, at the end of the day, there are children all over this country, who are literally stranded with no support or help because no one quite knows what to do.  

FAME's mission is pretty simple.

It is about improving the quality of the lives of families who are impacted by mental health issues.

I respectfully ask this question, what about the other four people in that equation of one in five?

 For us, this includes those invisible family members, the children.  We believe that children have their own innate resiliency and when we show them how they can be healthier and stronger they can tap on their own inner strengths to manage in situations such as what we talked about here.  In 1998 our fameKids program served 16 children who have a family member impacted by mental illness.  This year we are on track to help support and strengthen more than 400 children.  

Everyday our phone rings with inquiries about fameKids.  It is a compelling program and over the past four years we've collected information and data to reflect outcomes.  We know this program works.  We consider fameKids one of the very first pre-emptive strikes at early intervention using non clinical programming. Which ultimately means it is a cost effective delivery tool at the grassroots level.  On the intake screening when a child enters the fameKids program,  91% (2) of children reflected that they worry and are anxious that they too will become ill like their family member.  After attending an 8 week fameKids program that statistic drops to 40% (3).  We know that fameKids really helps to educate and equip children with coping & safety strategies for not only understanding their family member's illness, but to help them to understand their own feelings.  

At the end of every work day I ask myself why hasn't the Ministry of Youth and Children's Services stepped up to assist us so that we can reach more children?

We have banged on their door many times and  no one has ever answered.  I have called.  I have written. I have asked for appointments.  Even when a major funding announcement was made by the Ministry specific to children's mental health I was hopeful that there would be a few dollars for the fameKids programming. Still nothing. Even though we know this program works and we know this program delivers a monster bang for the dollar, the Ministry sits on its hands.  

Over the past year we have worked hard at putting together a Best Practices Manual for fameKids and we are coming to the end of that process.  We are fierce in our belief that fameKids is a program that could be trained for and affiliated across the province to other like minded, community based organizations, who could help children from Sault Ste. Marie to Ottawa.  We continue to look for pathways to help FAME facilitate this project and we remain hopeful that one day fameKids will become a national wide initiative.  We have a generation of children who are waiting.  How much longer can we afford to ignore them?  

If you would like more information about the fameKids program and its supports please contact us at:

fame@fameforfamilies.com  

Respectfully,

Christine Cooper

Executive Director

(1) i Health Canada. A Report on Mental Illness in Canada, 2002.
(2) Intake Statistics - fameKids, Family Association for Mental Health Everywhere
(3) Exit Interview Statistics - fameKids - Family Association for Mental Health Everywhere