"The results of [this] review paint a disturbing picture which is well-characterized by this comment from a physician participant: 'The system is broken. I've become so angry, frustrated and burnt out. The biggest frustration is the systemic disarray'."
April, 2013
THE quote cited was from a member of the 12-group panel of experts that provided input to the 127-page review: Still Waiting: First-hand Experiences with Youth Mental Health Services in B.C. released on April 6, by Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, B.C.'s Representative for Children and Youth.
How many of that physician's colleagues are similarly demoralized?
Can you imagine how you would feel if, having been consulted or hired as one of the finest minds in your field, your reports were condemned to gather dust on ministry shelves?
What would be your reaction if the expert findings and recommendations contained in those reports were to be contradicted, ridiculed or even "welcomed" with political promises that too often disappear with the sunset?
Not only is that a reality for the Representative, the circumstance is also familiar to a succession of federal and provincial auditors general and to Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page.
We all, especially the most vulnerable among us, pay a high price for that reality.
B.C.'s Ministry of Children and Family Development reports an average of 140,000 children and youth have mental disorders significant enough to "impair their functioning at home, at school, with peers, or in the community."
Not acknowledged among the statistics is that, unaddressed, those disorders not only cause a sufferer excruciating distress, they can adversely affect that individual and their family for a lifetime.
If that is not enough to make us pay compassionate attention, the cumulative economic fallout - for families, for communities and for government - is staggering.
The 2013/14 budget for MCFD is $1.35 billion - an increase of $12 million from the previous year. Added to the services provided by MCFD are those provided by Community Living B.C. a provincial Crown agency that manages a budget of $690 million, 93 per cent of which we are told is "spent directly on services and programs."
So how is that $2 billion being spent, and how much of it does indeed directly benefit 140,000 children with mental health disorders?
Bare numbers tell us the official ministry allocation is six per cent of the budget, or $78.7 million.
But the true answer may be that although we know that much of the data, there is no definitive answer - not due to wilful intent, but because each one of those kids may be accessing one slice or all of the program-pie at any given point in time.
What is helpful to know is that MCFD has eight core services: Early Childhood Development; Services for Children and Youth with Special Needs; Child and Youth Mental Health Services; Child Safety; Adoption Services; Youth Justice and Executive and Support Services.
It is also clear that, compromised or not, a direct line of cause and effect can be drawn, not just from one service to the others but from each one of those 140,000 kids to the government-funded services common to us all - education, day-to-day health care, housing and more.
Those connections become even clearer when we examine the diverse range of general and mental health services that must be covered under the $78.7 million umbrella.
According to MCFD criteria, conditions range from anxiety and conduct difficulties, to pervasive developmental disorders and from depressive and bipolar disorders to schizophrenia and more.
In her decision to focus particular attention on the mental health services available to youth who are "transitioning to adulthood," Turpel-Lafond recognizes that the period from age 16 to 24 renders vulnerable youth even more so.
Any parent who has experienced those transition challenges in their own "normal" youth can attest to the fact it is not an easy time of life to weather.
So why should we be surprised when a young person who may have survived a dysfunctional childhood ends up going astray when he or she is ill-equipped to go it alone as an adult?
Most upsetting of all is that Statistics Canada data show that in the five-year period 2006-2010, 94 B.C. youth decided their lives were not worth living.
Somehow, our two-billion-dollar systems had failed them.
Those deaths did not need to happen. If anything good can be said on the topic, it is that the MCFD website offers some excellent reference material and links to professional mental health interventions.
The challenge is to ensure that youth in crisis are made aware of that help when it matters most, long before they are driven to suicide.
As Victoria parent Kelly Bradley said prior to my column last week, "Whether done in person, by telephone, or by video conference, it needs to be done."
No doubt Turpel-Lafond had such pleas in mind when she wrote, "In the course of [my] work, [I] have been alerted to the serious shortcomings, poor communication and inconsistencies that plague the system serving British Columbia children and youth who have mental health problems."
Unless and until the "systemic disarray" is set to rights, not only will caring professionals remain "frustrated and burnt out" but the lives of uncountable youth will be lost to years of despair.
The knowledge and the dollars are there.
The question is: Can we do a better job of deploying them?
