Canada needs national standards to tackle kid’s mental health challenges: experts

Concern about the mental health challenges of young Canadians has been growing during the nearly two years of disruptions and repeated isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Concern about the mental health challenges of young Canadians has been growing during the nearly two years of disruptions and repeated isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But experts say we do not have the tools to properly assess the toll that the pandemic has taken on the mental health of Canadian kids. Creating standards for how mental health is measured could help grasp the scale of the problem.

Children’s Healthcare Canada, a national organization representing kids’ health-care providers, said children’s hospitals are reporting higher numbers of kids being admitted for suicide attempts, substance abuse and complex eating disorders.

Young Canadians reached out to Kids Help Phone about 4.6 million times in 2020, up from the 1.9 million connections in 2019, according to a report from the health service for youth.

Keith Dobson, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Calgary, said while certain metrics like hospitalizations and physician contacts are well-recorded, there are no standardized screening tools for mental health assessment in the country.

Dobson, who is also a researcher at the Mental Health Commission of Canada, said different groups and organizations, even within the same health-care system, will use different tools.

“That makes it really difficult to know what the rates are and how to compare them from place to place,” he said.

Paul-Emile Cloutier, president of HealthCareCAN, said standards are important for making sure money invested in the health system will actually result in positive outcomes.