Speakers address children's mental health

The Barrie Advance

Friday October 31, 2003

New Path Youth and Family Services and Kinark Child and Family Services are co-hosting a series of speakers in the afternoon of Nov. 4 to highlight the escalating seriousness of mental-health problems in children, and the need for funding to support community-based services.

For the past several months, Susan Hess - parent advocate and president of Parents for Children's Mental Health - has been touring the province with The Quilt of Honour. This quilt honours children with mental illness and the stigma, shame, misperception, and misunderstandings that shroud this disease. Four of the children whose names appear on the quilt committed suicide as a result of their struggle with mental illness.

Hess says children with mental health problems are often treated like third class citizens, unable to get treatment for serious illness, and accused of having "behavioural problems."

"I was constantly asked to remove my daughter from the school because no one had the expertise to deal with her behaviours, which were symptoms of her illness," says Hess. "At seven years of age, she kicked me, bit me, pulled my hair, punched me, screamed obscenities and threats at me. When she held a butcher knife's sharp edge to my throat, I saw in her eyes the fear of her life, desperately out of her control."

The Nov. 4 event is being held at New Path Youth and Family Services of Simcoe County, 61 Wellington St. W., Barrie, from 1 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. If you wish to attend the free afternoon, you should preregister by calling 726-8861. Seating is limited.
Earl Paquette, a volunteer member of the board of directors of Kinark, says many of today's "headline" problems related to children and youth - violence, bullying, suicide - are a result of mental health problems that have not been recognized or are dismissed as 'phases'. "We can't dismiss the problem or ignore these children - it is incumbent upon us, the community, to rally around these families and get them the help they need. We would do it for a child diagnosed with a physical illness, like cancer - it's time we did it for a child diagnosed with a mental illness," says Paquette.

Glen Newby, CEO of New Path Youth and Family Services, adds, "it's our goal to let families in Simcoe County know that they are not alone - that their children are not the exception. By hearing the first-hand experiences of Susan Hess, another parent who has been to hell and back, we hope that parents will be encouraged to come forward, ask for help and not feel ashamed or embarrassed."

Dr. Peter Marshall, a child psychologist, is also scheduled to speak at the event, along with representatives from the child welfare and education fields. Other area families will be there to share their experiences.
Children's Mental Health Ontario reports that across Ontario, one in five children suffers from some form of mental illness. Community-based children's mental health centres in Ontario have seen a 50-per-cent increase in waiting lists in the last few years, from 8,000 to 12,000 children and families.

The number of children needing treatment has increased by 176 per cent in the last 10 years, while budgets for core services have decreased by eight per cent over the same time period.