Currently, Canada is the only G8 country without a National Mental Health Strategy. Recently, the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) was established with one of its key priorities to develop a Mental Health Strategy for Canada.

As part of the strategy the MHCC will support the development of a framework specific to the needs of child and youth mental health. The proposed framework, entitled Evergreen, will complement and provide child and youth context to the Mental Health Strategy for Canada.

What is Evergreen?

Evergreen is a collaborative project that will produce a framework to help improve policy and programming related to child and adolescent mental health across Canada.

What is a mental health framework and why is it important?

Think of a framework like a blueprint for a house. If we want to build the best house, we need to create the best plan to design it and hire the best people to build it. Canada’s mental health system is no different. Frameworks help keep everyone on the same page, working together towards a common goal – to develop a mental health system that effectively meets the needs of its consumers.

Who will Evergreen affect?

Everyone. There is no health without mental health. A national child and youth mental health framework can be useful to assist provinces, territories and organizations to enhance their child and youth mental health strategies, policies and plans. Evergreen can also help to raise public awareness of the importance of addressing child and youth mental health needs, while helping to decrease stigma associated with mental disorders.

How is Evergreen being created?

The Evergreen framework will be collaboratively constructed by professionals, youth, parents and members of the public from all regions across Canada who have expertise, interest or experience with mental health and mental illness. In the end we envision the framework to be among the most comprehensive and scientifically-based child and youth mental health frameworks in the world

WE NEED YOUR HELP!!

To make this framework truly unique and successful we need your input. We need you to tell us what values and principles Canadians want to uphold in relation to mental illness and child and adolescent mental health services. We also need you to help share this initiative with others who can contribute.

The public forum will be online July 1st. When it’s ready our site and MHCC will link to it. Until then … spread the word!

How do we make sense of numbers?

Last year when when the economic crisis loomed the Federal Reserve and Treasury Secretary urged Congress to approve a $700 billion bailout of struggling financial institutions.

I remember politicians and media going to great lengths to try and put this amount of money in context. What does $700 billion mean to me? How do I relate that to my standard of living? Every technique was used…

Shock - Its over twice the amount of all money given to all charitable organizations in the United States in any given year.
Comparison - There are about 300 million men, women, and children currently living in the United States, so the bailout is equal to roughly $2,300 per person
Arbitrary - an average public school classroom filled up about 70% (between 2/3 and 3/4) of the way with salt!

But perhaps the best technique to explain figures like $700 billion is not to go big, but to go small.

I recently came across the work of artist Toby Ng. One of his latest projects tries to make sense of global numbers by simplifying them - what would gloabl statistics mean if the world were a village of 100.

In the field of mental health we have the same problem of making sense of numbers. Often when numbers are too large they become intangible, inhernetly meaningless and are no longer able to appeal to a person’s emotions. How do we put into context that “only a small minority of the 450 million people suffering from a mental or behavioural disorders are receiving treatment”? (World Health Organization).

Mental illness can affect anyone regardless of sex, age, race, religion, ethnicity or socio-economic class. In any given year one in five people are estimated to suffer from a mental illness and the economic and social costs of these disorders is staggering.

Mental health and mental illness are complex issues. They are complex to understand and require complex solutions. But perhaps the best way to start the conversation about them is to present them simply.

(Note: The image below is my own creation - an homage to Tony’s art project)

~ D. Venn

The United Nations has called the situation in northern Uganda the most neglected humanitarian crisis in the world. The 20-year civil war between government forces and a rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army has victimized tens of thousands of youth, destroyed families and fractured communities. The recent decrease in armed conflict has left the region with a difficult question: how do you teach peace to a generation who has known nothing but war?

The future of this region is in its youth! Many young people have been traumatized as victims and as perpetrators of violence. They have grown up knowing fear, now they need to learn to adapt to a less frightening world and to help each other heal.

Last year, the Dalhousie International Health Office (IHO) and Section of International Psychiatry: Youth Coalition for Peace participated in a joint project with the Canadian Physicians for Aid Relief (CPAR) and Gulu University. Their goal was to work with affected youth, communities and non-governmental organizations to help build a climate supporting sustainable peace in Northern Uganda.

Using a youth peer counselling model, our team developed a training program to integrate mental health into local peace-building efforts and establish community activities to address these issues in a non-stigmatizing manner. Given the important role that sport plays in Ugandan communities, soccer was identified as tool to engage youth and teach peace-building skills such as teamwork and conflict resolution.

My Daughter, Leah Kutcher - captain of the 2006 Dalhousie women’s soccer team - worked with Katie Orr at the Dalhousie International Health Office and coach Graham Chandler to send extra uniforms, equipment and soccer balls to Ugandan teams who lacked the materials needed to play. The Halifax City Soccer Club also contributed uniforms and equipment.

A program update from CPAR earlier this year reported that the uniforms and equipment were successfully distributed to youth teams in Laiby and Bungaterra. The update also reported the establishment of many community-organized sports, music and drama programs and Peace Clubs, allowing Ugandan youth to finally start building a better, more peaceful future.

Since then Stan Football Club (Stan FC) is thriving! Their latest blog entry is evidence of their success:

Stan football club players were honored by youth coalition for peace (YCFP), a community-based organization working (CBO) in northern Uganda to participate in a five-day children soccer camp for peace. Players are learning lots of new skills and rules for fair play that can foster harmony and sustainable youth participation in sport for development. The camp is being facilitated by professional coaches from Canada.

They have some great photos posted on their site too!

~ Dr. Stan Kutcher

Sometimes you have to travel far and wide to meet the leaders in your field. Other times they come to you. Dr. Leslie Ramsammy is in Halifax this week speaking about health for all in resource-poor countries and meeting with local health providers.

Dr. Ramsammy is the Minister of Health of Guyana and the President of the Sixty-first World Health Assembly. In May of 2008 his address to the WHA highlighted the importance of mental health. Here’s an excerpt from his speech:

“There is no health without mental health” is a global recognition. I believe Mental health is not properly integrated into our primary health care system. What has happened since The world health report 2001?

The world health report 2001 – Mental health: new understanding, new hope brought mental health to centre stage and called upon nations to prioritize mental health as an integral component of health. The world health report 2001 recommended the following actions:

• to provide treatment in primary care and the community;
• to make psychotropic drugs available;
• to educate and involve the public, communities, families and consumers;
• to establish national policies, programs, and legislation;
• to develop human resources and link with other sectors;
• to monitor community mental health; and
• to support continued relevant research.

Historically due to stigma and discrimination those with mental illness have not received the care they needed to support their recovery to become valuable contributors to civil society. We have the knowledge we need today to provide cost-effective, evidence-informed mental health care to all those who require it without discrimination and to ensure equal access to all health care for those with mental illness. Although we have made significant strides forward we have a long way to go.

Vertical mental health services have perpetuated the segregation and stigmatization of those suffering from mental illness. Mental health can no longer be the orphan of the health care system: it must be integrated into general health services and available in the communities in which people live and receive other services. New models based on population mental health needs can be achieved through enhancing competency of health care providers.

If only every Minister of Health around the world were so committed to advancing the understanding of mental health and mental illness.