New mental health curriculum guide targets high schools

An October 26th posting by the Dalhousie University Medical School:

By Margo Wheaton

Dealing with a mental health disorder can be overwhelming, especially for adolescents. At a time when fitting in feels crucial, it can be hard for a teen to admit how down she is or how alone he feels.

Although it’s estimated that mental health problems affect one in five young people in Canada, early diagnosis and treatment of conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, bulimia and anxiety disorders remains elusive. As a result, many young people aren’t receiving the help they need.



Dr. Stan Kutcher [pictured], a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Dalhousie University's Faculty of Medicine and the holder of the Sun Life Financial Chair in Adolescent Mental Health, has a group that has been working to change that.

Through a partnership with the Canadian Mental Health Association, Kutcher and his team at the IWK Health Centre have developed the Mental Health and High School Curriculum Guide, an innovative learning resource for secondary school teachers. The guide represents a component of the first expert-reviewed comprehensive school-based mental health program in the country and combines collaborative learning strategies with interactive multimedia tools.

The goal? To increase mental health awareness and literacy in students, teachers, and families.

According to Kutcher, who is this year’s recipient of the J.M. Cleghorn Award for Excellence in Leadership in Clinical Research, early identification of mental disorders in adolescents is key: “The data is very clear. We know that early identification and early effective treatment has profound short and long term positive outcomes not only in terms of the disorder but in terms of secondary prevention.”

He notes that identifying mental disorders in adolescence can help prevent substance abuse and social-vocational problems and stresses that failure to identify and treat mental illness in teenagers can have dire consequences: “Jail has become the new mental hospital for kids. We have to intervene earlier.”

By equipping schools with the most current resources in mental health and education along with the tools to facilitate dialogue in the classroom, teachers and students alike will be in a better position to see mental health problems for what they are and know there’s no shame in seeking help.

The curriculum guide, which consists of lesson plans, student-friendly activities and audiovisual resources, has already been successfully field-tested at Forest Heights Community School and will be further evaluated in two Digby schools early in the new year. A national launch of the program will take place in the next few months.

The curriculum resource is part of a larger framework called Pathways to Care, a collaborative, inter-disciplinary approach to adolescent mental health that’s been developed by the Sun Life team as part of its mission to disseminate the most current scientific information available. Other resources include a number of creative, interactive and user-friendly materials specifically for parents, siblings, healthcare providers and, of course, for teens themselves.

By educating the most important people in a child’s life about mental health, the model cuts across sectors and emphasizes the importance of community connections as a gateway to early detection and treatment.

Kutcher notes that “what we’re doing in the schools here is really cutting edge” and is very appreciative of support from the Provincial Department of Education, the Schools Plus Program, school boards, schools, educators and others without whom the work could not be successful. He points out that the Mental Health Commission of Canada has identified school mental health as a national priority and he envisions it as a major area of investment and development over the next decade.

“We’re now developing national and international linkages in school mental health and I think that we’re well positioned to take a leadership role. I’m hopeful that the province will continue to work very closely with us as we move that agenda forward.”


Media enquiries:

Allison Gerrard, Dalhousie Medical School, (902) 494.1789 / (902) 222.1917, allison.gerrard@dal.ca

Photo credit

Teens to learn about mental health

An article published in today's edition of The Chronicle Herald:

Pilot project could be coming to Digby County high schools in new year

By Brian Medel, Yarmouth Bureau

High school curriculum designed to teach students about mental illness may be coming to Digby County classrooms in January as a pilot project.

"This is new," said John Roswell, one of the program co-ordinators with the Digby-Clare Mental Health Volunteers Association.

"We hope to do it during the 2009-2010 school year, hopefully beginning in January," Mr. Roswell said about the project that will be conducted in four local high schools.

He hopes the curriculum will someday be included in all Nova Scotia high schools.

The curriculum was prepared by Dr. Stan Kutcher [pictured] in co-operation with the Canadian Mental Health Association.

"This is really a wonderful opportunity," said Dr. Kutcher, an adolescent mental health expert at Dalhousie University’s school of medicine.

The course will give students information on how the brain works and tell them how to maintain good mental health. Suicide prevention and depression will also be discussed, Dr. Kutcher said Tuesday.

He’ll help teachers better understand mental illness and the new curriculum in special workshops that will be held before the start of the course.

"They’ve been very enthusiastic about this," said Dr. Kutcher.

Next week, staff from the Education and Health departments, along with representatives from local school boards and health authority, will gather in Digby to talk about the new high school course and how it will be implemented.

"We’re not quite sure where it will fit . . . that’s part of what this discussion is going to be about," said Mr. Roswell. "We hope to make (it) a larger project . . . an overall approach to addressing adolescent mental health.

"We’re trying to create a dialogue around this issue in the community and make it OK for people to talk about mental health and mental illness."

Mr. Roswell said 80 per cent of all psychiatric disorders emerge in adolescence. He had mental illness as a young person but was undiagnosed until the age of 40.

"My life would have been so much different had I been diagnosed as a teenager," he said.

Mental health issues deserve an election voice: Coalition

An article published in yesterday's edition of Metro Halifax:

By Devin Stevens

The Mental Health Coalition of Nova Scotia held its third public forum yesterday, and is preparing to make noise during the federal election.

“Our voice isn’t enough,” said Carol Tooton, executive director of the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Nova Scotia branch.

“We need to bring others from the community in who are working on similar issues, people with the lived experience, who have been through the system. Family members, friends, businesses.”

About 50 people met at the Halifax Forum, breaking into discussion groups and brainstorming how to best represent the mentally ill.

By mid-afternoon, large sheets of paper were taped to the walls, outlining the Coalition’s ideas. Over the next few weeks they plan to pressure federal election candidates to do more.

Tooton said that even though they don’t provide services, the coalition will be after municipal candidates to address those issues as well.

“Guess what? If you have a mental issue and you’re homeless, and you’re panhandling on Spring Garden Road, then it’s an issue for the municipality,” Tooton said.

Tooton said that mental health funding accounts for just four per cent of Nova Scotia’s health care budget, and that number is slipping.

Keith Brumwell runs the Caring and Sharing Social Club, where adults with severe mental health problems can get together, play games, and relax.

Brumwell said he was worried by the lack of funding.

He recently contacted the authorities about a person he thought was suicidal. The doctors agreed, but told the patient to go home for three or four days until a bed became available.

“Home was part of the problem with her,” Brumwell said.

A passionate call for mental health services

From today's edition of The Chronicle Herald:

By John Gillis, Health Reporter

Deputy minister makes rare appeal for public support

Nova Scotia’s deputy health minister called on mental health organizations and the public Friday to help her light a fire under politicians to do more to help people with mental illnesses.

In a passionate off-the-cuff speech at the opening of the Canadian Mental Health Association’s national conference in Dartmouth, Cheryl Doiron said her department has put more money into mental health services over the years, but spending has declined as a proportion of the overall health budget.

"It’s very hard to get it to be the primary issue, particularly for politicians who are making budget decisions . . . because they are not getting the same pressure about mental health as they get about cancer and coronary disease and diabetes," she said.

"We, working from the opportunity we have within government, organizations such as (the national association) and the Nova Scotia (association) and other groups, and all of us collectively need to be doing something much more significant to make this a burning bridge issue for decision makers."

Mental health spending accounts for just over 3.5 per cent of the $3.2-billion provincial health budget.

Ms. Doiron said the relatively small amount of funding for those services means the province is failing to provide "absolutely essential help" to children and others.

She gave the example of an adolescent mental health program at the IWK Health Centre. The in-patient treatment lasts 12 to 18 months. But the 13- to 19-year-olds who might benefit from the intensive program have to wait that long just to be admitted.

Ms. Doiron said she pleaded the case to cabinet and was able to secure extra funding of $1.5 million this year and about $2 million in subsequent years to expand to 18 beds from 12.

An enduring bias against people with mental illness means people are often reluctant to speak about their conditions, and society doesn’t know they should be treated just like people with physical ailments, Toronto psychiatrist David Goldbloom told the conference in his keynote address.

"I think one of the challenges around mental illness is that its unique properties include affecting our thinking, our moods and our behaviour: the very dimensions that define us as individuals," he said. "That makes it a lot tougher to separate the illness from the person."

And while growing numbers of people report in surveys that they have had direct experience with mental illness, either personally or through a friend or relative, the perception that people with mental illnesses are dangerous or violent has increased, Dr. Goldbloom said.

That attitude is exemplified by reporting on events such as the recent beheading of a passenger on a Greyhound bus and crime dramas like CSI and Law and Order, he said.

"The reality of mental illness, its mundane reality, is virtually never depicted," he said. "The same applies to the newspapers, because somebody recovering from mental illness or somebody simply making a great adaptation to mental illness is about as newsworthy as a plane landing safely at the airport."

Dr. Goldbloom said research shows that negative perceptions are formed very early, so young children should be a focus of efforts to erase stigmatization.

Workplaces should be another major target, he said.

Finding and keeping meaningful work goes a long way toward helping a person with mental illness develop a sense of self and social connections; mental illness is the leading cause of short-term disability keeping people out of the workforce, Dr. Goldbloom said.

The Mental Health Commission of Canada, of which he is vice-chairman, says mental illness drains $51 billion from the Canadian economy each year.

But there is hope that negative attitudes can be broken down, Dr. Goldbloom said.

He recalled that when he was an intern in the early 1980s, hospital staff were "terrified" of the gay men who appeared with symptoms of what was later identified as HIV/AIDS, only touching them with triple-gloved hands.

"Think of how far it has come in the ensuing 25 years," Dr. Goldbloom said. "It’s really an extraordinary social transformation. Mental illness has not come anywhere near as far as HIV."

Photograph of Cheryl Doiron courtesy of The Canadian Institute for Health Information.