For more than 70% of adults living with mental health problems, symptons developed in childhood or early adolescence.

The Child and Youth Advisory Committee believes that identifying youth at risk and intervening as early as possible improves their life trajectories, their productivity as Canadians and reduces the prevalence of mental health problems in adulthood.

Successful interventions with children and youth will also help create a long term change in attitudes and behaviours related to mental illness.

The Committee has recently formed a Youth Council. The group is made up of 17-25 year olds who have lived experience of mental health problems or illnesses. The Youth Council will advise the Commission about matters relating to youth and mental health. Individual members will have the opportunity to join MHCC project teams, working groups and other committees.

The committee is now working on projects to:

• Develop a Canadian vision for child and youth mental health;



• Support the delivery of evidence-based mental health services for children and youth within the school setting;



• Make the child and youth segment a central part of the national anti-stigma campaign;



• Identify, understand and promote effective strategies to address and defeat self-stigma experienced by children and youth;



• Develop an index of current local, national and international knowledge exchange initiatives related to child and youth mental health and establish a Canadian consortium for knowledge exchange in child and youth mental health;



• Systematically compile, review, and synthesize material for the knowledge exchange related to child and youth mental health to meet the needs of various end users;

For all inquiries, please forward to: info@mentalhealthcommission.ca