One day after World Mental Health Day, 100 Women Who Care Guelph answered the call by choosing to support our youngest citizens through CMHA Waterloo Wellington’s “Brief Service for Children, Youth, and their Families” program.
Mental health issues often have their roots in early childhood, when our childen have not yet instilled healthy coping strategies to deal with the despair, hardship, or crisis they are facing. Without guidance or support, they often turn to eating disorders, drug addiction, or alchol instead.
Since November of 2019 (pre-pandemic), there have been the largest increases ever recorded in every indicator across the public health stream for children, including mental health. Our children are suffering.
With a wait time of a year for ongoing care, our local CMHA saw a need for an early intervention program. They created and successfully piloted Brief Service. This program offers children and youth with mental health difficulties from 0 to 18 years of age, along with their parents/caregivers, weekly one to one counselling sessions for a maximum of 10 weeks, addressing immediate needs with the aim of developing goals and a treatment plan together.
As a result, 70% of the children involved in Brief Service require no further care at all, reducing the wait time for ongoing care from a year down to three months.
Early intervention works.
The struggle to regain control of your life as an adult is a difficult and arduous task. How much better would it be to never go down that road in the first place?
With that thought in mind, 100WWCG chose to support CMHA WW’s early intervention model by investing their recent donation in our children’s mental health.
Visit www.100womenwhocareguelph.com for more information or to join 100WWCG and help support those in need in our community.
