According to Youth Mental Health Canada, an estimated 1.2 million children and youth in Canada are affected by mental illness, but less than 20 per cent will receive appropriate treatment.

It is also estimated that 75 per cent of children with mental disorders do not access specialized treatment services. Discover Airdrie spoke to several parents in Airdrie about how their children and families as a whole cope with mental health issues and whether they feel the healthcare system is addressing their children's needs.

A. (whose name has been withheld to protect the identity of her children) is the mother of a 12-year-old, who has struggled with mental health problems for most of their childhood. However, as puberty started, the mental health anguish became more pronounced.

"We started to see signs that she was doing self-harm. Eight or nine months ago, my husband took her to the [Alberta] Children's Hospital to ask, 'how do we get her help? How do we get her to stop? They more or less just said, 'we're seeing probably 20 kids today with this problem' and [they] sent us home."

She also explained that while she was able to get her daughter into Access Mental Health, which according to Alberta Health Service (AHS), is "a non-urgent service providing information, consultation, and referrals for individuals with addiction and/or mental health concerns. Mental Health Clinicians complete a clinical interview over the telephone to assess the individuals’ needs." However, due to the fact that her child was only able to have scheduled appointments weeks apart, it was not a comprehensive tool that would address her mental health needs.

"In September, they said, 'you seem good. We're going to stop'. But then around December, we started to see her go downhill more and this time, it wasn't anxiety as much as it seemed like depression," she said. "She's being withdrawn. She's not doing things. Two and a half weeks ago, I discovered that she had been planning to run away and take her own life."

A. would rush her child to the Alberta Children's Hospital once again, her fears being realized. At the hospital, it was determined her child was a danger to herself and there were limited options the parents could pursue due to her age.

"We just needed to wait for a bed. There were only three options. There is the mental health unit at the [Alberta] Children's hospital, there would be a bed in a regular unit at Children's where she would be treated as a mental health patient but she wasn't in the proper unit or there is the community psychiatric unit just south of the hospital."

A. would take her child to the community psychiatric unit, but her child's stay didn't last long due to a potential COVID-19 exposure, which meant that A.'s child would either have to self-isolate in their room for up to five days or go home and receive outpatient treatment.

"We knew it wouldn't be healthy for her to be locked in a room there, so we decided to take her home. But the quote-unquote treatment as an outpatient was basically non-existent. They sent her home with some booklet she was supposed to go through,"

A. said that no matter how much she tries to communicate with her child to help her open up, she is not able to address the mental health concerns. 

"We're her parents, but we're not trained to pick up on how she says things a certain way or what questions we should ask or how we should ask them,"

Robin Popowich, a licensed clinical hypnotherapist believes that it's not always about parents and caregivers looking or recognizing signs. 

"There aren't always signs, visible signs. What needs to happen is that parents [need to] recognize that their children are having an experience that is not conducive to healthy mental health," Popowich said. "The important thing is what really builds resilience in kids; is talking about how things may be difficult right now, but how they will get better. Talking about hope making plans for the future."

She believes there is a mental health crisis surrounding children and adolescents and that this crisis can snowball.

"When children's mental health issues are not addressed, when they're children, they grow into adults and it becomes even more complicated, it becomes even harder to overcome as an adult all the way into midlife."

Popowich underlined that she has heard from clients that access to public mental health is complicated.

"First and foremost, mental health is expensive and the mental health that is accessible through the government is - I've heard a lot of complaints about the quality. I can't speak to that personally, but I've heard a lot of complaints about the quality," Popowich said. "The business model for traditional talk therapy is two years. It takes years of talk therapy. So people have a couple of sessions and they drop out and then there's a lessening of hope."

Popowich said that education with regards to mental health is key, especially when it comes to assessing what intervention is needed. For Jodi Laird, another Airdrie mom, that intervention came in the nick of time.

"I think that our reality with mental health came when my principal called me of my kids school when my son was in Grade one," Laird said. "My son had had an incident at school where he had attempted suicide. I wasn't prepared for anything like that. My son hadn't been exhibiting any kind of a dip, like what you would normally probably look for when you're when your child is labelled as suicidal."

Laird was even more taken aback about the news of her son given her social work background. Like A., she rushed to the Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary and her son would undergo a full mental health assessment, but because of his young age, Laird said there weren't many resources for her family or her son.

"We were handed a list of key things [at the hospital] like here some resources that you can call, and see if they'll help you out," she said. "I was like, what? I've just been told that I had that my child's suicidal, we've spent the entire day at the hospital and now let's go home and make some phone calls? So I don't really think that the support was there for parents."

Laird ended up finding a resource 40 kilometres in Chestermere and also found a mental health resource book through Access Mental Health, which in retrospect had a significant impact.

"We worked through the book, I printed off a whole list of feelings and went through the basics of how to express yourself, but again back then, which was three years ago, there weren't that many resources for somebody who was so tiny. So we got through that first episode but it came up again when he was in Grade Three," she said. "He just really really really struggled again and a lot of it had to do with [him] just not feeling like he fit in at school and not really feeling like he had a good peer group to belong to."

This time around Laird would work with her child's teacher and through everyday communication with his teacher Laird's son was able to navigate his mental health struggles. However, the proverbial switch came when Laird's child joined sports.

"I think that that kind of filled a belonging sense for him and he also made a couple of really good friendship connections at school," Laird said. "It really was like a light switch. But I'm but I think that it was probably because of the initial warning in grade one that came up when we were so on top of it from the very beginning. We were pretty intense in terms of talking about their feelings and communication."

However, Laird echoed the sentiments of both A., and Popowich saying that resources that deal specifically with the mental health needs of children are few and far between.

"There were other agencies that were telling me, 'we have a waitlist and it could be like six months down the road.' I'm not waiting for six months for this to fester, or for other stuff to manifest. I'd like to get him the tools now," she said. "The resources are limited and for parents who are relying strictly on referrals and programs that they can access for free, there's nothing; it's disgusting, or the waitlist is a year and a half. I'm sorry, a child's mental health can't wait a year and a half."

April MacDougall, a registered psychologist with the College of Alberta Psychologists, who works as a mental health and addiction navigator at Hull Services in Calgary, said that children's mental health and addiction system can be complex, and overwhelming to navigate.

"One of the pieces is that parents often are unsure where or when to start looking for mental health and addiction services and doing a Google search can be overwhelming," she said. "In my role as a mental health and addiction navigator, I use my clinical and work experience and connection to the system to help determine what are the best steps for the family. I consider a number of things; what they've tried before, what's worked, what hasn't because there are multiple pathways to care."

The mental health and addiction navigator role was created in 2021 in part to address the increase of children's and youth's mental health needs through the COVID 19 pandemic.

"In my navigation role, once I connect with families and I hear what's going on and make recommendations, I connect with them and stick with them through the journey," MacDougall said, "If they reach any barriers in the way of basic needs barriers, I help them with that or [if they're] waitlisted, I then will recommend ways to cope while on the waitlist, whether that be another service or other support."

According to a recent finding by the provincial government, in the Child and Youth Well-Being Review final report, it was stated that "Suicide rates for children and youth were stable in 2020 compared to 2019, along with Emergency Department visits for attempted suicide and self-harm. Over the first four months of 2021, there was a substantial increase in self-harm visits to the emergency room among females aged 12-17."

However, according to the Centre for Suicide Prevention, in 2019 there were 46 child suicides in children aged one to 14, with 22 males and 24 females committing suicide. In Alberta, there were 584 emergency room visits in 2017 of children under the age of 14 that were seen due to suicide attempts and self-inflicted harm injuries. 

Statistics Canada states that suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death in children and youth (10 to 19 years) and males account for 41 per cent of 10-14 year old suicides, increasing to 70 per cent of 15-19-year-olds. 

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis reach out to:

Emergency – 911
Addiction Helpline – 1-866-332-2322
Mental Health Helpline – 1-877-303-2642I
211 AlbertaCrisis Text Line - Text CONNECT to 741741
Family Violence – Find Supports – 310-1818
Health Link – 811
Income Supports – 1-866-644-5135
Indian Residential School Survivors and Family, IRSSS – 1-866-925-4419
Kids Help Phone – 1-800-668-6868 or text CONNECT to 686868
Local Resources & Support - Crisis Services Canada
MyHealth.Alberta.ca: List of Important Numbers
Physician & Family Support Program - 1-877-767-4637

Other resources can be found here. 

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