Since it is Christmas and since gift giving is “top of mind” (regardless of your religion – this is a time of year that gift giving is celebrated – OK, not the retail kind, the REAL kind), I thought about what gift I as a mental health professional would like to receive.  And guess what – a number came to mind.

First, I would like to see a Canada and the global society be a place in which people living with mental illness had exactly the same rights, equalities and access to care as people with illnesses that are not disorders of the brain have.  When we can speak of diabetes and colitis and arthritis and schizophrenia all in the same breath and with the same considered and supportive perspective then we will have gone a long way to decreasing stigma and barriers to mental health care.

Second, I would like to see us beginning to talk about finding a cure for various mental illnesses, much as we speak about finding a cure for breast cancer or finding a cure for prostate cancer.  We have finally developed and are rapidly developing our understanding of the brain and its functions – in health and in disease.  And we are getting closer to understanding the social and enviromental impacts that effect brain function and how those may contribute to the development or perpetuation of mental disorders.  So its time we set our sights on a cure for schizophrenia, a cure for major depressive disorder, a cure for bipolar disorder and so on.  We may not find a cure in the next five or ten years, but by gosh the search will take us a long way forward.

Third, I would like to see our mental health community supported and enhanced by coming together of various components instead of those components pulling us apart.  Sometimes I think that if we spent one half of the time and effort that we seem to put into supporting pet ideologies or convincing others of our “truths” in common purpose, we would be so much further ahead.  One foundation that we really need to build our community on is scientific literacy.  We need to use science to advance our cause.  We need to use the best scientific methods and the knowledge that they bring to us to inform our directions.  We need to embrace the science and not rail against it.  Building on this foundation we can work together to ensure that all the interests and different voices of individuals and groups are expressed, heard and included.  A house has many rooms, but if its foundation is not strong it will collapse, regardless of how pretty it may look.

So those are my three Christmas gift wishes.  The best of this gift reminding season to you and yours.  Regardless of your religious beliefs or other defining features.  Be well.

-Stan

It’s hardly a day goes by that we don’t read about depression and its impact on people and the economy and the toll it takes with suicide. We also read about how wonderful treatments are and how it is important to get help as soon as possible. All the above is true and for sure if I, or one of my loved ones, or one of my friends, was depressed I would certainly opt for immediate treatment with an antidepressant medication and an evidence based psychotherapy, delivered by competent health care providers.

But, and this is a big but – the evidence shows that good as our treatments are, they are not as good as they should be. The medications really help a lot but they do not help everyone. The psychotherapies help a lot but they do not help everyone. Combining the treatments helps more people but even this does not help everyone. So what do we need to do?

Well, it’s all well and good to make our systems of care more accessible and to train more health care providers to be able to treat depression but wait a minute. Shouldn’t we be spending a whole lot of time and effort on making our treatments better? Shouldn’t we be making sure that when we offer a treatment to someone the chances of it working the first time are as close to 100 percent as we can get? What would you prefer – a one day wait time for a treatment that works 50 percent of the time or a one week wait time for treatment that works 90 percent of the time? And while we are at it – why not a one day wait time for a treatment that works 100 percent of the time.

So we need to invest in treatment research. We can have all the health care providers and all the clinics and all the nice posters on the walls of schools and neat anti-stigma ads on the television and radio and on and on and on – but, if we do not get better at treatment, how much further are we really ahead? Do you know how many high powered (meaning really good scientific studies) have been done in Canada in the last five years on the treatment of some of the most common mental disorders that begin in adolescence. One? Five? Nine? Maybe none? Do you have any idea how much money is being spent on finding out how to better treat young people that have psychosis or depression or obsessive compulsive disorder compared to treatments for other medical illnesses or even compared how much is spent on posters that tell youth about problems? Don’t you think you should have some idea?

We need to invest in a major way in learning better ways to treat mental disorders in this country. We are not doing that in Canada. It is time we started to. Improving access to care is a good idea. Improving access to care that actually works is an even better idea.

-Stan

Recently I wrote a post on mental health in the palm of your hand - exploring how technology and iPhone applications were being used to share medical and mental health information.

Following that post I contacted Dr. Harvey Castro at Deep Pocket Series to ask him about Sad Scale - a self screening Depression test and iPhone application tool.

Understanding the need for a Depression scale for children, Dr. Castro worked with our team to adapt the Kutcher Adolescent Depression Scale (KADS) for use on the Sad Scale application.

The KADS, along with the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for Children (CES-DC), are now available on the Sad Scale. These applications will give you a graph on your progress and will also allow you to email your health care provider the results of the test.

The iPhone application is available now and can be downloaded for $0.99 from iTunes.

We are now adapting the Kutcher Generalized Social Anxiety Disorder Scale for Adolescents (K-GSADS-A) … stay tuned! (literally)

~ David Venn

Great video on youth mental health produced by YoungMinds in the UK. But good advice for any country and its leadership.

“YoungMinds Very Important Kids (VIK), our national panel of young people with mental health problems, have launched a manifesto  and accompanying film to highlight to politicians the changes that need to be made to improve young people’s mental health.”

You can download the YoungMinds children and young people’s manifesto here

“Written in their words and including their own stories it covers 11 areas where they believe things must change so that all young people with mental health problems get the support they often so desperately need.”

Manifesto main points

1. Stigma still affects us; its about time we were able to talk about how we feel.
2. Dealing with problems when we are young; train primary school staff
3. Growing up is difficult; support us when changes happen in our lives
4. Getting what we need at secondary school; train everyone to understand teenagers problems.
5. Waiting lists and assessments just make it harder; make them shorter and provide us with one worker for all our care.
6. Some doctors don’t listen to us; they need to understand and support us
7. Going to Accident and Emergency can be traumatic; treat us with respect, see beyond our labels
8. Some psychiatric units feel like prisons; learn from the best ones
9. Someone to speak up for us; we all need advocates
10. Lost in the system; don’t forget about us when we are 16 plus
11. We’re the experts; start  listening to us

In the past few weeks I’ve come across several advertising campaigns aimed at raising awareness about mental health problems. Two in particular focusing on Autism and Eating Disorders caught my attention (you can see why below).

Advertisers know what “sticks” when it comes to marketing: sex, shock and emotion. These approaches can be effective ways to sell products or promote a brand identity - but how well do they transfer into the world social awareness? Or for that matter mental health?

SEXY

The people at Sociological Images alerted me to this Rethinking Autism ad campaign. The RA site maintains that:

“All too often in the world of autism, celebrity and sex appeal are used to promote pseudo-science that exploits autistic people, their family members and the public.  We decided to put those very same factors to work in service of the truth.”

This is a clever ad. It’s information is scientifically-based and it captures your attention.

But is it effective?

While I get the tongue-in-cheek reference that Autism has become a “sexy” topic of discussion, I question whether the core message gets buried beneath a sea of lingerie.

The Rethinking Autism website claims to want to “change the conversation one video at a time”, but are we changing the conversation towards Autism and debunking pseudo-science or does the ad instead meander towards a debate about the objectification of women as sex objects. If the latter then the message is lost.

EDGY

Next up is a series of ads from the Looking Glass Foundation for Eating Disorders based in Vancouver BC.

The ads are edgy alright - but their message is misleading. The tagline in the ads is “Not every note is a suicide note” - which falsely implies that eating disorders are a method of suicide. We know this is not true.

So while the ads are effective in shocking us, they do little to advance discourse because of their false message - in fact they may even perpetuate the myth that eating disorders are motivated by suicidal intent.

EMOTIONAL

Finally an anti-stigma ad campaign from the Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia (see video on their homepage).

The ad uses personal narratives, emotional music and dream-like backgrounds to tell a story. In under a minute the video captures the pervasive stigma that accompanies mental illnesses, touches on the scientific basis of mental disorders as brain disorders, points to the need to improved resources to meet the needs of those living with mental illnesses and challenges the viewer to talk more openly about mental illness and mental health.

Effective doesn’t have to be flashy and this ad is a great example of the power of emotion and story to communicate an important message.

~ David Venn

Happy Canada Day!!

Canada has a proud history of valuing health care as part of the fabric of this country and as a basic right for all citizens. However, despite our commitment to overall health care, our attention to mental health care is overdue.

In Canada, approximately 1 in 5 children and adolescents experience some form of mental disorder. Most major mental disorders begin prior to the age of 25, making this period a critical time for the promotion and treatment of mental health problems.

One of the key initiatives of the Mental Health Commission of Canada is to develop a Mental Health Strategy for Canada. As part of the strategy the Child and Youth Advisory Committee of the Mental Health Commission of Canada will support the development of a framework specific to the needs of child and youth mental health.

We need your help!!

We invite all Canadians to share their thoughts and opinions in an online survey about values and principles relating to child and youth mental health.

TAKE THE SURVEY NOW

The survey will take about 30 minutes to complete (but you can save your answers and come back to it at any time).

It is important that we get the thoughts and opinions from as many different people as possible. Please pass this information along to your network, family, friends, or anyone who you think should join this consultation.

How do you let people know about your cause?

For big corporations and organizations this problem isn’t so difficult. They throw money at national advertising campaigns, they hire creative PR firms, they design complex websites, etc. But as non-profits our capacity to engage in these expensive promotional techniques is often limited.

Here are some useful, more cost-effective ways to share your message

Collaborate instead of communicate - when we work in a silo we don’t accomplish as much as we could if we worked in partnership. Find other organizations either at home or around the world who have the same cause and vision as you and ask them to partner. Don’t help yourself first. Bring something to the table that is of value to them, especially if you are the smaller organization. What do you have that they don’t? Find a way to make the partnership mutually beneficial. (See our project with ViewFinders as an example)

Listen to what others are doing - yours is not the only voice in the room. Instead of trying to communicate your message, listen to how others are communicating theirs. Set up RSS feeds to track what other people are doing, read blogs (Beth Kanter’s blog on how non-profits can use social media is excellent), follow people on Twitter and Facebook. Listening to others will give you great ideas about how to spread your cause.

Know your audience - a group of a few who care is often better than an army of many who don’t. Communication is not always a numbers game. Find a core group of people who really care about what you are doing and ask them to help you spread your message. (Chris Guillibeau talks about this idea in his Brief Guide to World Domination). A few people in power positions and really connected to what you are doing may have a much greater impact on your cause than many people with minimal influence.

Use multiple mediums - diversify the mediums you use to communicate your message. The best approach encompases multiple streams of communication. Email and e-newsletters may be great for reaching some people, but blogs and social media may be useful for reaching others. Cross-link your communications for a comprehensive approach. To Write Love On Her Arms is doing this really well.

A Child and Youth Mental Health Case Study

On July 1st we are opening up a survey as part of the Evergreen project to ask Canadians to share thier values and ideas about child and youth mental health. We have been implementing the principles above to spread the word about this initiative. Here’s how we are using these principles:

Collaboration - we don’t have many connections with parent groups so we found a publication that did and partnered with them. Today’s Parent has been supportive of our project from day one and have even helped us by asking their audience to take a survey about mental health and take part in this cool online flower garden for children’s mental health.

Listen - we have been using google RSS feeds and a del.icio.us account to track news and blogs about mental health. It’s been a great way to listen to what others are doing and to join the conversation.

Know your Audience - our key audiences, in addition to youth and parents, are health professionals and educators. By using promotional networks specific to these audiences (ie: HPClearinghouse) we can target our communications efforts.

Multiple Mediums - our blog and website are strong tools for reaching our audience. Recently we have expanded to Facebook and are using e-newsletters (sign up on left hand side) to engage people who are interested in what we are doing. Another great tool is interactive media like Slideshare.

Have you found a particular technique helpful or useful? What other ways are you are promoting your cause and voicing your message? Share your ideas in the comments section!

~ David Venn

(image credit: omacaco)

So after months of team discussion we have finally made our first foray into Facebook! Yeah I know … we are a little behind the trend - but better late than never.

Our goal is to get over 1,000 people to become a fan of our “Help Canada Create a Youth Mental Health Strategy” page.

The Facebook page is an offshoot of our Evergreen project - a collaborative initiative with the Mental Health Commission of Canada to produce a document to help improve policy and programming related to child and adolescent mental health across Canada.

We created the Facebook page for 4 primary reasons:

1. Engagement - we want people to share their opinions with us about what values and principles Canadians want to uphold in relation to mental illness and child and adolescent mental health services. On July 1st the public forum will be open for you to share your voice.
2. Education - an informed public is a strong public. Our Facebook page will feature some of the guides and information uploaded on our teenmentalheatlh.org site. We want to give people the best available info to make good decisions about their mental health.
3. Advocacy - the Mental Health Commission of Canada is committed to creating a comprehensive mental health strategy for Canada and are in support of a component specific to the needs of children and youth. Youth mental health will stay in the shadows unless we speak up and advocate for change - Facebook is just one of the ways you can speak up.
4. Connection - facebook is a great way to connect with people who share similar causes to you. By creating this page we want to connect people who care about youth mental health and want to make a difference to Canada’s mental health system.

Help make a difference for thousands of young people. Join “Help Canada Create a Youth Mental Health Strategy“.

Last week I blogged about an animation film project we co-developed with ViewFinders. I posted some of the videos from the camps. Here are the rest of em. Enjoy!

This has been a good few months for teenmentalhealth.org. First we won a Web Health Award - now a Gemstone Award!

The Atlantic Gemstone Awards recognize public relations practitioners from the Atlantic region who have made outstanding contributions to the profession and who demonstrated innovation and creativity in communications programming in the past year.

Only six Gemstones were awarded at the May event making this an extra special honour. Kudos to our great web partners at Impact Communications for another job well done!