Children's Mental Health in the News
Below are general news items about child and youth mental health. For stories about clinical matters in child and youth mental health, please go here.
Youths hope to 'change the view' on kids' mental illness
Tuesday, May 18, 2010The message is simple. It is delivered calmly by seven youths, speaking one by one, in seven languages. Most mental health problems begin in childhood or adolescence. They are real, even though some cultures deny or don’t talk about them, and some families are ashamed. Too many children and teens are suffering alone and in silence. “So now is the time to act,” one teenaged boy explains to the video camera. “No matter where you are from,&...
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Suicide predator should face justice
Wednesday, September 1, 2010TORONTO - Far away in Minnesota, the Internet predator charged with counselling Nadia Kajouji to commit suicide is fighting to have his confession tossed and himself declared mentally incompetent. But at least the wheels of justice are in motion. What Marc Kajouji doesn't understand is why only the American judicial system is proceeding with the disturbing case when his sister was a Carleton University student from Brampton. "I can't believe it's been 21/2 years since she passed and still not...
Full ArticleOntario's mental-health system needs to be fixed now
Wednesday, September 1, 2010What a cruel juxtaposition of events. Last Thursday, a committee of the Ontario Legislature released a hard-hitting report on the need to fundamentally transform the province’s mental-health and addictions system. Then, on Sunday, as if to underscore the urgency of implementing their recommendations, Toronto Police shot to death 25-year-old Reyal Jensen Jardine-Douglas. The shooting is still under investigation, but his “crime” seems to have been to suffer from mental illne...
Full ArticleAdvocates call for more help for autism
Tuesday, August 31, 2010Parents of children with autism continue to struggle with long wait lists, gaps in services and no guarantees for therapy — despite efforts by the province to repair the patchwork system. Since 2003, the Ontario government has increased spending on autism from $44 million to $165 million and implemented new support services for families, including school and respite programs. But parents and advocacy groups say the province’s efforts are not enough; too many children still spend to...
Full ArticleAttention deficit disorder can work to a child's advantage, comedian tells teachers
Tuesday, August 31, 2010It turns out attention deficit disorder is a dysfunction in the brain’s “hard wiring” that can be fixed with a bit of duct tape. That was the message, from personal experience, that comedian Rick Green, originator and director of the Red Green Show, brought to about 1,000 Ontario educators gathered for the local public school board’s fifth annual Vision to Practice conference this week. You can’t literally fix a complex neurological disability with duct tape, of c...
Full ArticleThe right to refuse wellness
Monday, August 30, 2010On the streets, we see homeless men and women engrossed in soliloquies or flailing at their demons. Behind closed doors, the burden of mental illness can be more private but no less tormenting. Now, a committee of MPPs studying mental health and addiction has called for major reforms that would get Ontarians talking again about how to help mental health patients who refuse to be treated. The all-party committee heard from an anguished family trying to help a son who believed he could stop movi...
Full ArticleReport needs more on children's mental health: Vaughan group
Monday, August 30, 2010A provincial report on the state of mental health and addiction concludes the current system to treat these issues needs to be fixed. But members of a Vaughan social action committee say the report doesn't focus enough attention on the challenges involving children's mental health. The province's select committee on mental health and addictions was comprised of members of all three political parties, including Liberal Oak Ridges-Markham MPP Helena Jaczek. The committee was charged with the ta...
Full ArticleMother of autistic boy confronts MPP over lack of treatment facilities
Sunday, August 29, 2010Susan Fentie-Pearce is not just the co-founder of Ontario Autism Coalition, a group that has been pushing for shorter wait-times and better treatment options for autistic children. She’s the mother of four boys, two with autism. Her youngest, 14-year-old Keith, is non-verbal and has become increasingly violent in the last few months, pinching, biting, kicking, pulling her hair out, and injuring himself. Fentie-Pearce is desperately searching for help for her family. On Friday, that searc...
Full ArticleAgencies tackling mental illness
Saturday, August 28, 2010I wish to thank Parents for Children's Mental Health ( www.pcmh.ca)for inviting me to one of their recent workshops called the Invisible Disability. PCMH is a provincial, nonprofit, parent-led organization that provides a voice for families who face the challenges of child and youth mental health issues. To tell you the truth, I didn't have any idea what to expect until the workshop started. This gathering enabled me to gain valuable knowledge and insight into how parents, whose children's li...
Full ArticleCoyle: Mental health 'crisis has arrived' say MPPs
Friday, August 27, 2010Twenty-one pages. That’s all it took to describe unspeakable human pain, a problem deeper and wider than even seasoned MPPs imagined, and to make 23 recommendations that could go a long way to improving and saving lives. To optimistic eyes, the report Thursday by the Ontario legislature’s select committee on mental health and addictions might just be the most influential bit of short prose since the Gettysburg Address. It started with images from the stories MPPs were told by men ...
Full ArticleMandatory long-form census paints picture of youth suicide
Friday, August 27, 2010To the editor: The information generated by the long-form census, the National Longitudinal Survey on Children and Youth, and other data collection methods utilized by Statistics Canada are a critical element in improving the mental health of children and youth across Canada. The child and youth mental health sector will be significantly harmed by the federal government's decision to have Statistics Canada change the methodology it uses in collecting data, reducing its accuracy. Data collecti...
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