Themes of youth wellbeing: health and wellness

Outcomes 1, 2, 3

Ontario wants youth to:

• Be physically healthy
• Feel mentally well
• Make choices that support healthy and safe development

Health and wellness during childhood and adolescence forms a foundation for lifelong well-being. Government ministries have developed and implemented strategies specifically for youth, and strategies for all Ontarians that have youth-specific programs and services.

This year, Ontario continued to invest in strategies that support outcomes of health and wellness for youth, including:

• Healthy Kids Strategy
• Immunization 2020
• Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Strategy
• Ontario First Nations Health Action Plan
• Open Minds, Healthy Minds—Ontario’s Comprehensive Mental Health and Addictions Strategy
• Moving on Mental Health
• Smoke-Free Ontario

Strategies and Programs Supporting Outcomes

Healthy Kids Strategy

Lead: Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care

Ontario’s Healthy Kids Strategy aims to reduce childhood obesity and improve children’s health and well-being.

New in this report:

• Healthy Kids Community Challenge reaches almost 40% of Ontario’s population. Participating communities include municipalities, Aboriginal Health Access Centres and Aboriginal Community Health Centres.
  • The second theme of the program, Water Does Wonders, launched in July 2016.
  • The Healthy Kids Community Challenge supported the De dwa da dehs nye>s Aboriginal Health Centre to develop culturally appropriate programs that support Indigenous children in the Hamilton, Niagara, Haldimand and Brant areas to be active and healthy.
• The Northern Fruit and Vegetable Program will expand to reach four more northern regions and on-reserve schools in Sudbury under the Ontario First Nations Health Action Plan. The program brings healthy and nutritious foods to students. Last year the program, coordinated by the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association, reached over 36,500 children from 192 schools, including 6,600 Indigenous children and youth.

Related:

• The Preventing Childhood Obesity Tool was launched on TheWell website, a resource of clinical supports. This tool helps primary care providers guide conversations on healthy lifestyle choices and is meant for use during regular pediatric visits with patients up to age 17.

Immunization 2020

Lead: Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care

Immunization 2020 is a first-of-its-kind road map for Ontario that will help the government and its partners achieve a high-performing, integrated immunization system. It builds on Patients First: Action Plan for Health Care and includes a combination of routine and high-risk immunization programs.

New in this report:

• Amendments were introduced to the Immunization of School Pupils Act, 1990 that strengthen the requirements to obtain exemptions for required school vaccines and improve how vaccines are reported.
• The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) immunization program was expanded to include:
  • Boys, as part of the routine, school-based program
  • Men who are age 26 or younger and who have sex with men or identify as gay or bisexual, including some trans youth

Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Strategy

Lead: Ministry of Community and Social Services

Under the Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Strategy, Ontario supports First Nations, Métis, and Inuit individuals, families and communities. Key goals include reducing family violence and violence against Indigenous women and children, and improving health, healing and wellness through culturally appropriate programs and services. The strategy’s programs are for Indigenous peoples of all ages, including children, youth and young adults.

New in this report:

• In 2015–16, the government dedicated over $47 million to the Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Strategy. This sum includes over $29 million from the Ministry of Community and Social Services, about $10 million of which was announced in 2014. Youth-specific Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Strategy programs receiving additional support include:
  • The Mental Health program, which delivers non-residential activities for at-risk or high-risk children, youth and their families
  • The Treatment Centre program, which provides residential treatment to youth with addiction problems in a residential setting as well as intake and aftercare support to youth, their families and communities

Ontario First Nations Health Action Plan

Leads: Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, and Ministry of Children and Youth Services

New! The Ontario First Nations Health Action Plan was announced in May 2016. The plan includes Indigenous youth life promotion and crisis coordination and support components such as:

• Holistic response/prevention teams to stabilize communities in crisis and provide training on suicide prevention and life promotion
• An expansion of the Tele-Mental Health Service to enhance outreach and support
• Indigenous mental health and addictions workers to support students in First Nations schools

Open Minds, Healthy Minds—Ontario’s Comprehensive Mental Health and Addictions Strategy

Lead: Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care

Open Minds, Healthy Minds—Ontario’s Comprehensive Mental Health and Addictions Strategy is the government’s plan to support mental health for all Ontarians. Phase 1 of the strategy focused on mental health supports for children and youth and was led by the Ministry of Children and Youth Services. Now in Phase 2, and led by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, the strategy’s focus has expanded to include improved transitions between youth and adult services and a broader focus on addictions and mental health across the lifespan.

New in this report:

• The Mental Health and Addictions Leadership Advisory Council released its first annual report, Better Mental Health Means Better Health, in December 2015. The council’s second report is expected to be released in early 2017.
  • The council identified youth addictions as a priority for 2016 and set up a working group to support this priority.
• Through the Drug Treatment Funding Program, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health developed the Evaluation Plan for Youth Care to increase the capacity of youth addiction agencies in Ontario to evaluate the effectiveness of their services.
• Ontario’s three-year Youth Suicide Prevention Plan helped young people in crisis by enhancing local capacity to respond through training, coaching and the sharing of resources. It also enabled greater collaboration between children and youth services professionals, such as mental health workers, educators, police, and school and public health nurses.
  • Building on this work and in response to the state of emergency in Attawapiskat, the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care and the Minister of Children and Youth Services met with the community and its leadership.
  • The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care deployed the Emergency Medical Assistance Team to the Attawapiskat site of the Weeneebayko Area Health Authority to provide surge capacity to existing mental health and clinical resources within the community.
  • The province is also supporting a Youth Regional Coordination Unit for Mushkegowuk Council.
• The Mental Health Innovation Fund (Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development) supported 34 projects to help postsecondary students get access to mental health services faster. Projects include:
  • Summer transition programs
  • Peer support services
  • Development of resources and tool kits
  • Targeted supports for Indigenous students

Related:

• The Kenora Chiefs Advisory supported its Youth Council, to make sure it heard from youth in its communities about the Mental Health and Addictions Strategy.
• Youth and adults with a history of mental health or addiction challenges who are interested in pursuing self-employment and entrepreneurship are able to receive microfinancing, business training and mentorship through Rise Asset Development. (Ministries of Health and Long-Term Care and Children and Youth Services)
• Additional initiatives to support street-involved youth include a mental health support crisis service centre in downtown Toronto for LGBTQ2S youth and a new mandatory training program developed by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
• Access to mental health services increased in 2015–16 in northern, rural and remote areas of the province due to the greater use of telemedicine, including the Northern Telepsychiatry Project and the Tele-Mental Health Service.
• Together to Live is an online tool kit for community partners, developed by the Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health. It brings together evidence-informed information, tools and resources to help communities develop the capacity to support youth at risk for suicide.

Moving on Mental Health

Lead: Ministry of Children and Youth Services

Through investments in Open Minds, Healthy Minds—Ontario’s Comprehensive Mental Health and Addictions Strategy and the Moving on Mental Health action plan, the province is fundamentally changing the way mental health services are delivered to children and youth. These programs help young people, their parents and caregivers know where to go for help and how to access the right services when they are needed.

New in this report:

• Lead agencies for child and youth mental health were identified in 31 of 33 geographical service areas to ensure that the same core services are accessible across the province. Lead agencies will be supported with an investment of $6 million to help an additional 4,000 children, youth and families each year.
• New clinics providing mental health services for youth on a walk-in basis opened in summer 2016. Youth who need access to a psychiatrist are fast tracked, while others who may benefit more from peer support are connected to that service.
• The province is also expanding online, smartphone and video resources that can provide immediate, specialized support when and where it is needed.

Smoke-Free Ontario

Lead: Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care

The Smoke-Free Ontario strategy combines programs, policy, laws and public education to help smokers quit smoking, protect people from exposure to second-hand smoke, and encourage young people to never start smoking.

New in this report:

• The Electronic Cigarettes Act, 2015 came into force in January 2016. The act makes it illegal to sell or supply e-cigarettes and component parts (e.g., battery, atomizer) to anyone under age 19.
• In 2015–16, Smoke-Free Ontario’s Leave the Pack Behind cessation programs and services were accessed by over 30,000 young adult smokers. Through this initiative, up to 300 postsecondary students were trained as tobacco control advocates, and over 7,500 young adult smokers were referred to health care providers.

What the Data Says

• In 2015–16, over 8,700 Indigenous children and youth participated in the physical activity and nutrition activities of the Healthy Eating and Active Living program delivered by Aboriginal Health Access Centres.
• Immunization has saved more lives in Canada than any other health initiative in the last 50 years^{footnote 5[5]}
• HPV can cause both benign and malignant disease. HPV in Ontario has been estimated to cause an average of 254 deaths and 1,090 cases of cancer every year^{footnote 6[6]}.
• The smoking rate in Ontario fell from 24.5% in 2000 to 17.4% in 2014, which represents 408,000 fewer smokers^{footnote 7[7]}.

Data from the Profile of Youth Wellbeing

• 87.6% of youth are attached to a primary care provider.
• 17.6% of youth have recently consumed excessive alcohol.

Case Study

Kristin Legault-Donkers and the Children’s Mental Health Series

Kristin was inspired to write because of her personal experience.

Kristin Legault-Donkers lives in St. Thomas, Ontario, and is an undergraduate student at Western University. Kristin was inspired to write and publish a series of children’s books about depression, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and bipolar disorder because of her personal experience with mental illness and navigating Ontario’s mental health system.

Kristin’s goals in writing the Children’s Mental Health Series were to help other children, youth and families feel less alone with their mental health challenges, learn healthy coping strategies, access community mental health services, and build an awareness and understanding of mental health and mental illnesses.

Her books describe the symptoms of mental illness in ways that children and parents can easily identify with. The books normalize mental illness by comparing it to a physical illness or an injury, like the common cold or a broken arm. The books also provide kid-friendly coping strategies, recommend ways that family members and friends can respond, and stress the importance of getting professional help. The series has been endorsed by local social workers and psychiatrists. Kristin has also partnered with a local teacher to create an educational package for classroom use.

I just purchased your book Zack, The Very Busy Kid for my nine-year-old son. He thinks he has a lot in common with Zack. We are using the book to talk about his feelings and find some solutions. Your book has already made a difference in my son’s life and I’m sure other children are benefiting as well.

Mother from Woodstock, Ontario