If you break your arm, you know what to do. Go to the hospital, have it set, pick up your pain medications and return for follow up. While not a pleasant experience, there is little question about the care path you need to take. If only things were so simple with mental health issues. Where do you find treatment? What’s the entry point into the system? And what happens if it’s your adolescent who needs help?
Most of the major mental illnesses, including bipolar disorder and depression, start during the teen years. That means right now, about two million Canadian youth are living with a mental health or addiction issue. Sunnybrook psychiatrist Dr. Anthony Levitt calls it an epidemic in our community.
A few years ago, some of the parents living with this epidemic reached out to him. “They had been through a very difficult time and didn’t want other parents to have to go through that,” he says. “That’s where the Family Navigation Project started.”
Simply said, the Family Navigation Project offers the expertise of navigators that personally guide families to the help and resources they need. The navigators also stay in the boat with families for as long as it takes (meaning months or even years) with follow up and additional support. If you’re not sure where to turn, turn here.
If you have an adolescent between the ages of 13 and 26 with a mental health condition, addictions issue or both call 1-800-380-9FNP or e-mail familynavigation@sunnybrook.ca. Just remember that The Family Navigation Project is not a crisis response line. People who find themselves or a family member in an emergency situation should call 9-1-1 or go to the nearest hospital emergency room for help.
Congratulations Sunnybrook for this much needed initiative. Having provided a roadmap for negotiating the mental health care system, let us hope that government will provide you with the much needed resources and the infrastructure to avoid traffic congestion on the “road” which is bound to occur. I predict the inevitable crowding at the gate because, as a society we are making good progress with all the stigma removal initiatives that are helping our lonely and suffering adolescents and their families break the silence. Now, the governments and private donors to walk their talk so we don’t put all the burden on the already overwhelmed health care practitioners who are having to meet exponentially growing demand for services while working in facilities that have not been upgraded sinc