Two of the most common reasons young people don’t reach out for mental health help are because they don’t want their parents to know, and they hope the problem will go away.
Let that sink in.
These insights are according to the just-released report “Doing OK?: Checking in on the mental health of B.C. Youth.”
The McCreary Centre Society’s findings are remarkable for their honest glimpse into young minds that are valuable for adults who care about them.
It doesn’t matter what facilities we build in Squamish or what excellent services are available to our kids if they can’t find a way to tell us.
If children can share their struggles with their guardians, we can help them acknowledge that the issue might not go away.
The report is based on data from the B.C. Adolescent Health Survey, filled out every five years by students aged 12 to 19 in school districts across B.C.
(Hands up if your kid often answers “OK” when you ask how his day was? The anonymous survey may be one of the only times our children speak their truth to adults.)
Students filled out the latest survey pre-pandemic in 2018, thus, a lifetime ago, but it is reasonable to extrapolate that the mental health findings point to cracks and strengths that COVID-19 has intensified.
Of relevance to Squamish is the impact of unstable housing. How many times kids move in a year is directly related to their mental health. “Children who had moved three times or more were the most likely to report poorer mental health.”
A quarter of youth who had moved three or more times in the past year said they had self-harmed.
We tend to think of housing as something that causes stress for adults, but clearly, children are impacted as much, if not more, than their parents.
Something else Squamish parents can take from the survey is the importance of preventing concussions. The report notes that 50% of those who said they had seriously considered suicide in the past year had experienced four or more concussions.
In terms of ways we can support our youth, the study found 77% of those who often or always felt connected to nature said their mental health was good or excellent, compared to 64% of those who hardly ever or never felt this way.
Getting outside is something Squamish families are good at, pandemic or not.
With so much going on, this report has gone under the radar a bit but is worth delving into.
Webinars about the findings are coming up on April 13 at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Join from your computer, tablet, or smartphone: global.gotomeeting.com/join/283669373.
Join via phone: 1-888-455-1389 (toll-free).
Access code: 283-669-373.
Find out more at www.mcs.bc.ca.
