Students struggling in wake of pandemic, more mental health resources needed: Toronto board of health
CBC
More mental health resources are needed for child and teens still suffering negative impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, Toronto's board of health says.
The board decided at a meeting on Monday to recommend that the city ask the province for more mental health funding to help students who require "intensive" intervention that goes beyond the scope of the school system.
Specifically, the board said the province should address wait times for treatment and increase access to care for students in distress. The board also decided to recommend that the city ask the province to work with school boards on the issue. Its recommendations will go to the next city council meeting.
At the meeting, Toronto Public Health (TPH) staff told the board that students reported higher rates of depression, an increase in screen time and a decrease in physical activity in recent surveys.
"Unfortunately, what we've seen is that a significant proportion of our young people, almost 50 per cent in fact, described that they were having moderate to severe concerns in respect of their mental health," Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city's medical officer of health, said after the meeting.
"Obviously, this is a concern for us."
But de Villa said collaborative work can be done with governments, school boards, families and the larger community to support better health.
Coun. Chris Moise, chair of the board of health, said he saw a decline in student mental health firsthand when he was a school board trustee prior to being elected councillor last year.
"Students were actually behaving erratically. They were not really socializing with one another. There was an increase in violence in schools, an increase in sexual assaults. I think it's all compounded," he said.
Among the statistics TPH staff presented to the board members were:
The data was taken from Toronto's Population Health Profile (2023), the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (2022) and the 2022 ParticipACTION Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth.
TPH staff also told the board that food insecurity has an impact on mental health of young people and that one in every five Toronto households experienced food insecurity last year.
De Villa added: "You can see how a vicious cycle can emerge. Families, parents are stressed about being able to put food on the table. That creates household stress. For a child themselves, recognizing that they're hungry, has a direct impact on their ability to learn."
According to the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (2022), the by children and teens' screen time has increased since the start of the pandemic.
This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation and CBC Saskatchewan.
More than 300 patients without housing have gone from Edmonton emergency rooms directly into transitional accommodation since the launch of a unique program in March 2023.
B.C. Ferries says it is replacing its principle model of community feedback, the ferry advisory committee (FAC), which has been the main way the ferry corporation has kept in touch with ferry-reliant communities for over three decades.
The inquest for six inmates at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre heard Tuesday that five of the men died overnight, one of several commonalities noted in testimony by a corrections consultant.
"Our bodies lie, but still we roam" is written on a wooden cross paying tribute to Paul Gilbert and Donna Whyte — the Windsor couple who were fatally hit by a vehicle on Walker Road last week.
In three years, the number of people who are homeless in Waterloo region has doubled a new report says.
P.E.I.'s minister of fisheries says the Maritime oyster industry has sustained another blow after evidence of a new disease was recently found in oysters from Spence Cove, about five kilometres west of the Confederation Bridge in New Brunswick.
WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
Canadian political leaders can't control the fact that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. Neither can they stop him from threatening to take illogical steps that could hurt American businesses and consumers almost as much as they would hurt Canadians.
A First Nation in southern Alberta is suing the federal government for $1 billion, the latest in a series of lawsuits which argue that annual payments promised in treaties should have been adjusted for inflation.
The oilpatch is reacting to Donald Trump's threats to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods with a mix of concern and skepticism.