MDs must create environment where young people can talk about mental health

TORONTO | In late March 2010, Eric Windeler and Sandra Hanington received the phone call all parents fear: It was the police, and they were sending an officer over. Three minutes later, an officer came to tell them their son Jack had died, a suicide."My son was 18, finishing his first year of university," Windeler told an audience of 100 in Toronto. "He was suffering from depression so severe that the only solution he could find was ending his life."Jack's parents didn't know he was sick. "We worried about normal things, that he skied too fast or that he was introspective," said Hanington, showing slides of her beautiful boy. "Jack hid his pain from us," adds Windeler.In the note Jack wrote to his family before his death, he said he was unable to reach out for help. He added that they shouldn't worry about him, but try to help others.The Jack Project And that is what his parents have done. Windeler quit his job and, with Hanington, founded The Jack Project, which has partnered with Kids Help Phone to ensure young people receive the help they need as they move from high school into the next phase of their lives.Windeler is on a speaking tour of epic proportions, launching the program in 22 high schools and 12 postsecondary schools in Ontario. He hopes to expand the program across Canada.At his talk in Toronto this month, he was joined at the podium by psychiatrist Dr. David Goldbloom, senior medical adviser of education and public affairs at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), and vice-chairman of the Mental Health Commission of Canada."Mental illness threatens who we are like nothing else," Dr. Goldbloom told the audience, explaining that those with psychiatric illness suffer twice-once from their symptoms and again from other people's negative reactions. "This dual burden of suffering is the responsibility of everybody in this room."Social isolationTo illustrate the social isolation many feel as they hit rock bottom, Dr. Goldbloom pointed out that CAMH is a huge, 600-bed hospital with no gift shop. "For those 600 individuals, there is not enough (visitor) traffic to sustain a gift shop."How prevalent is mental illness in the young? One in five people between the ages of 15 and 24 are suffering from a diagnosable illness, according to Dr. Goldbloom. And care is hard to get. "Here in this wealthy province of Ontario, only 20% are getting some kind of help. And many of those aren't getting a great standard of help."Grim statisticsStatistics Canada figures indicate that the suicide rate in boys ages 15 to 19 is 12.1 per 100,000. The rates are lower for girls, at 6.2 per 100,000. "Kids shouldn't be dying that young," he said.In the dark days after Jack's death, Dr. Goldbloom did one of the most difficult things he does as a psychiatrist: He went to sit with the Windelers and their two younger children, Ben and Julia, to try to help them deal with their grief and make sense of what had happened.He tried to explain to the audience the signs that a young person may be suffering. "What's normal is not wanting to talk to parents. What's not normal: not wanting to talk to anybody. What's normal is coming home later than curfew. What's not normal is not coming home at all. What's normal is wondering why people kill themselves. What's not normal is saying you wish you were dead."He also described a simple way parents and caregivers can be attuned to their children's mental health. Studies show that teens who have family dinners at least five times a week are more likely to feel their parents are proud of them and to have higher academic performance, and are less likely to have problems with drugs and suicide. "This is a low-tech intervention that is available to everyone," he said.The Medical Post contacted Dr. Goldbloom after his speech to ask about physicians' role in preventing suicide in young people."In some respects," he said, "this is the group that is least likely to access help. They are not always happy to discuss with adults their difficulties. Yet this is the age of significant risk for adult psychiatric disorders."For physicians, he said, it is important to recognize issues and create an environment where young people can be comfortable talking about mental health.Kids Help PhoneHe and colleague Dr. Jon Davine, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioural neurosciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, recently published "Psychiatry in Primary Care: A concise Canadian pocket guide," available through CAMH publications (1-800-661-1111).Doctors can also tell teens Kids Help Phone now enables live chat so young people who need help don't have to pick up the phone-they can chat with someone on their computer. This initiative is driven by The Jack Project. "Imagine where Jack was and imagine how hard it would have been to pick up the phone and ask for help," Windeler said.The Jack Project's school-based outreach program is now in its pilot year and will be rolling out nationally in the 2012/13 school year.Each time Windeler and Hanington talk about their son, people come up and thank them. Teenagers sometimes tell them they saved their lives. "There was a whole set of stories that came to us," Hanington said. "It took our tragedy to bring them out of the shadows. It gets awkward, but I talk about it. It's what happened to us. It is unacceptable that we still find people who whisper about it."

MDs must create environment where young people can talk about mental health

Register for free access or login.

Related Topics