NOTE: This article was featured in the Spring/Summer 2024 edition of BC Counsellor
Dear Colleagues,
Our students are growing up during a mental health crisis. For example:
Since a public health emergency was declared in 2016, more than 13,000 people have died to toxic drugs in British Columbia (BC) [1];
In the 2018 BC Adolescent Health Survey, 17% of students, and 44% of non-binary students, reported they had seriously considered suicide in the past year [2]; and
Research in Ontario between 2002-2019 revealed a 139% increase in child and youth eating disorder hospitalizations [3].
Furthermore, there is a yawning gap between the level of need for child and youth mental health services and the actual availability of those services. Researchers at Simon Fraser University have called this state of affairs "an invisible crisis in children’s mental health" [4]. This gap exists despite the facts that access to healthcare is a fundamental right of all children and that mental health problems early in life can have severe long-term impacts on individuals and society.
In 2021, Dr. Tracy Vaillancourt and colleagues wrote:
Even before the pandemic, children and youth in Canada were not faring well in large part because mental health has not been prioritized… The pandemic has put a spotlight on this problem and with this attention comes the need for action. [5]
School counsellors hear this call to action because they are on the front line of child and youth mental health. The services school counsellors provide are crucial to addressing the mental health crisis because the majority of mental health and substance use problems begin in childhood and adolescence [6]. Since children and youth spend much of the week at school, it is the ideal setting for promoting their well-being and preventing relatively minor mental health challenges from developing into more severe (and costly) mental illnesses and substance use disorders.
Prioritizing the mental health of children is an upstream approach to addressing the mental health crisis, which stands in contrast to the reactive, downstream approaches which have historically been the norm. Downstream approaches are like throwing a life preserver to a person drowning in a river. Upstream approaches are like warning people about a dangerous section of trail to prevent them from falling in the river in the first place.
Upstream approaches such as highquality promotion, prevention, and early intervention programs can have a tremendous, positive impact on the success and well-being of our students. However, many mental health challenges are also caused and/or exacerbated by factors such as the climate emergency, discrimination, poverty, and violence to name but a few. Therefore, upstream approaches are also inherently connected to social justice.
With all that said, I am excited to share with you the articles in this issue of BC Counsellor, which focus on the social justice element of going upstream.
References
BC Coroners Service. (2023). BC Coroners Service death review panel: An urgent response to a continuing crisis. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/birth-adoption-death-marriage-and-divorce/deaths/coroners-service/death-review-panel/an_urgent_response_to_a_continuing_crisis_report.pdf
McCreary Centre Society. (2018). Results of the 2018 BC Adolescent Health Survey. https://www.mcs.bc.ca/pdf/balance_and_connection.pdf
Pratt, M. (2023). Eating disorder hospitalizations on the rise, affecting ‘atypical’ groups the most. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1009736
Barican, et al. (2022). Prevalence of childhood mental disorders in high-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis to inform policymaking. Evidence Based Mental Health, 25(1). https://doi.org/10.1136/ebmental-2021-300277
Vaillancourt, T., Szatmari, P., Georgiades, K., and Krygsman, A. (2021). The impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of Canadian children and youth. FACETS. 6(): 1628-1648. https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2021-0078
Kessler, et al. (2007). Age of onset of mental disorders: A review of recent literature. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 20(4). https://doi.org/10.1097/YCO.0b013e32816ebc8c
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