Mental Health Service Information Ontario, an information service of the Ontario Government, provides confidential, anonymous and free responses to people 24/7.  This telephone service and internet accessed database provides “Up-to-date information about mental health services and supports in Ontario”.Toll Free:  1-866-531-2600 www.mhsio.on.ca

This service is available to anyone – professionals, families, friends, people who are trying to find information about mental health services anywhere in this province. 

Interpretation is available in more than 140 languages.

If you would like free brochures, business cards, posters or fridge magnets that explains and promotes this government service for your company or agency, feel free to contact them to get an order form.

Resiliency is an important concept for families dealing with a mental illness. Resilience is defined byResiliency Initiatives, a Canadian website about resiliency, as: "the capability of individuals and systems (families, groups and communities) to cope with significant adversity or stress in ways that are not only effective, but tend to result in an increased ability to constructively respond to future adversity. Lifton (1994) identified resiliency as the human capacity of all individuals to transform and change, no matter what their risks; it is an innate 'self-righting mechanism.'"

One of the keys for families to be able to build resiliency is for them to be connected to a community of care. What does this mean? It means that often families feel isolated when dealing with a child or family member with a mental illness. This isolation leads to a lack of resiliency. A lack of being able to quickly overcome crises and problems they are faced with while caring for loved ones. This, as well as the stigma around mental health, often leads to further isolation. This isolation leads to prolonged pain and crisis.

But a community of care is a team of individuals, agency workers, and school personel, gathered around a family to help them overcome the crisis or problem and move forward. An important part of this team is often other parents who have been through similar issues. Peer support in many cases proves to be one of the most important components of a community of care.

If parents who have been through this, let's call them parent advocates, are available and able to help others who are facing issues they have already faced then we add significantly to a community of care. Agencies are beginning to recognise the value of these parent advocates as are schools and governments local, provincial and national. It is through the use of parent advocates that we can expand the community care.

This website, like a number of others such as Parents for Children's Mental Health, is in part a response to the need to expand and make it easier for families to access a community of care and increase their resiliency.

We are fortunate in the London area to have Dr. Wayne Hammond present a workshop about resiliency for parents onApril 23, 2009, 7:00-8:30pmfor Parents/Guardians. The workshop will be held atCarousel Room, Western FairThis workshop is free. To register please RSVP toCindy Evans –c.evans@ldcsb.on.ca 519-663-2088 Ext. 40008

We are living in a time of economic crisis and many families right now are stuggling to get by following lay-offs and downturns. This is why it is so surprising that the 2009 Ontario Provincal Budget provided no help to the most underfunded part of our health care system - Child and Youth Mental Health.

Just so we're clear, there has been no increase in funding to this area for 14 of the past 16 years, despite the increased demand on our community agencies in Ontario (In Windsor there has been an increase of 50% due to the ecomomy- see article from Andre Picard of the Globe and Mail ). We know that 1 in 5 children are affected by a diagnosable mental illness ( In Ontario that's about 600,000 children) and of those only 2 in 10 get any treatment.

In an article on the Daily Exchange website, Glen Newby, president of Children's Mental Health Ontario, said "We had hoped that the government would have recognized the increased pressure on our budgets as families struggle to manage in this difficult economy, instead, we are once again asked to do more, with stagnant funding." The article goes on to say that 11,123 children are on waiting lists for even the most basic of services.

In London, Ontario, an internationally renowned website for youth, Mind Your Mind, is scheduled to end operations in May unless funding is secured. Madame Vanier Children's Services will have to cut an early intervention program due to lack of funding.

According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, in "the year 2000, the economic cost of mental disorders and substance abuse in Ontario was $33.9 billion. According to The Economic Costs of Mental Disorders, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Illicit Drug Abuse in Ontario, 2000 approximately 85% ($28.7 billion) of the total cost was due to productivity losses. The remaining economic burden ($5.1 billion), was made up of direct costs such as hospitalizations, community mental health and substance use programs, law enforcement, research, and education." (see article)

We also know that for every dollar spent on mental health there is a $7 dollar savings to the economy. The question now is why does the Ontario Government continue to ignore the suffering of some 600,000 children and their families in our province? Why has this continued for the last 14 years?

We, the families that live with this reality every day, need to tell the Government of Ontario that enough is enough. Fund our children's future now.

Contact the Premier and Minister Deb Mathews to let them know this is not acceptable any longer.