Mental Health Advocacy Award: Family Association for Mental Health Everywhere

It's been a pretty exciting week for me.

On Tuesday night, the Family Association for Mental Health Everywhere (FAME) inducted me into their mental health advocacy Hall of Fame in recognition of my "contributions to the community's understanding of mental illness" and "untiring advocacy around mental health issues." Past inductees into the FAME Hall of Fame include former Ontario Lieutenant Governor James Bartleman, journalist and author Scott Simmie, mental health advocate Karen Lieberman, mental health advocate Lembi Buchanan, mental health advocate Al Birney, and filmmaker Stuart Clarefield. 

The Family Association for Mental Health Everywhere offers support to families who have a loved one who is struggling with a mental health challenge. They serve families across the Greater Toronto Area and Peel Region through their offices in Etobicoke, Scarborough, Brampton, and Mississauga. "We believe families make up the basic social structure of our society," the organization's website notes. "Family members provide ongoing support and connection for many of our life experiences. This is particularly true for persons who are vulnerable or ill....As an organization brought together by families, we have a thorough understanding of the challenges and emotions experienced in supporting a family member with a mental illness....[We] works hard to ensure that families have a strong voice within the communities. We are based on a self-help model which respects and supports the expertise that families have regarding their mentally ill relative and their experience in the system."

Thank you, FAME -- both for taking the time to recognize my mental health advocacy work and for the truly life-changing work you have been doing in support of families for over 25 years.

Photos from the event.

Bullying Prevention Tips for Children Who Are Struggling

by Ann Douglas

It’s not your imagination: children who are struggling with mental health, neurodevelopmental, and behavioural challenges are more likely to be bullied—and/or to bully—other children. 

Not only do they tend to exhibit behaviours like depression, anxiety, and excessive aggression that are likely to make them targets of bullying: they have fewer opportunities to play with other children and work on all-important relationship skills like cooperation, empathy, and perspective taking—skills that make them less likely to want to bully others.

So what can parents, teachers, and other caring adults do to reduce the likelihood that a child will bully or be bullied? 

Give your child the opportunity to work on his relationship skills. These skills don’t fall into place easily or naturally for every child. Some children need some extra help with relationships skills, including the art of relationship repair. (Things can and do go wrong in relationships. Children need to know what to do in order to fix those problems.) 

Help your child to forge some key alliances. Relationships reap tremendous dividends when it comes to protecting a child against bullying and reducing the likelihood that a child will bully others. Children who have a strong relationship with a teacher are less likely to engage in bullying or to be bullied; and children who have a strong relationship with at least one peer are less likely to be bullied. 

Teach self-advocacy skills. Children who are being bullied can be taught how to ask for help in a way that strengthens relationships, minimizes conflict, and encourages the other person to want to help. At the same time, it’s important to let the child know that he has your support. Your child needs to feel the strength of your caring: to know that you’ll do whatever you can to make things better, starting right now. 

Model the behaviours you wish to see. Join forces with other adults to create communities that are characterized by kindness and mutual respect so that children grow up knowing how they should expect to be treated and how they should expect to treat others.  

Resources:

Prevnet.ca

Red Cross RespectED 

Ann Douglas is the author of Parenting Through the Storm: How to Handle the Highs, the Lows, and Everything in Between (a guide to parenting a child with a mental health, neurodevelopmental, or behavioural challenge). 

This post was originally published on the website of the Canadian Red Cross.

Four Simple Yet Powerful Things You Can Do Right Now to Start Making Things Better for Your Child

Your child is going through a difficult time. You don’t quite know what’s at the root of her woes, but you do know that you want to do something to help. Fortunately, there are a number of practical things you can do, starting right now, to help make things better for your child. Here are four ideas.

1. Ask yourself, "What does my child need from me right now?"
Parenting can be exhausting—and meeting the needs of a child who is angry or upset can require an extraordinary amount of patience. You will find it easier to be patient with your child—to zero in on the best ways of handling a particular situation as opposed to getting stuck in your own feelings of helplessness or frustration—if you pause to ask yourself one key question: "What does my child need from me right now?" That simple question really cuts to the chase of things by helping you to shift your focus from how you are feeling to what you can do to help.

2. Validate your child’s feelings.
Validating your child’s feelings means letting your child know that what she is thinking and feeling makes sense, even if you don’t share that exact same perspective yourself. You might tell your child, for example, that it makes sense that she is afraid of thunderstorms. Everyone is afraid of sudden, loud noises. Validating your child’s emotions will encourage her to accept her feelings rather than trying to avoid them (which only serves to make those unwanted feelings more intrusive). And it is an effective strategy for calming an upset child. Knowing that she has been heard and that her feelings have been accepted will make it easier for her to shift from emotion to problem-solving mode.

3. Be a calming presence.
Of course, one of the most powerful things you can do to calm an upset child is to be a calming presence yourself. Think back to when you were a child—how good it felt to be hugged or held by someone who made you feel safe and secure. You can be this kind of stabilizing force for your child while she works at managing her own emotions.

4. Practice self-compassion.
Treat yourself with the same kindness that you would extend to a friend who is struggling. Not only will you be modeling this all-important skill for your child (the art of cutting yourself some slack when you’re having a really bad day): you will also find it is easier to extend these same feelings of kindness and compassion towards your child—the ultimate parenting win!

Related:

• The New Family: How to Cope When Your Child is Suffering With Mental Illness
• Parenting Through the Storm: How to Handle the Highs, the Lows, and Everything In Between

This article originally appeared at Toronto4Kids.com.

Ann Douglas is the author of Parenting Through the Storm: How to Handle the Highs, the Lows, and Everything in Between (a guide to parenting a child with a mental health, neurodevelopmental, or behavioural challenge). She is also an engaging and inspiring speaker who sparks important conversations about parenting and mental health.

"We Were Lucky"

On an otherwise ordinary early summer evening, my then-12-year-old daughter retreated to her bedroom and took a massive dose of extra-strength Tylenol. She had been going through a very tough time at school and was looking for a way to numb the pain.
 
Through sheer good fortune, my husband and I managed to pick up on the fact that something was terribly wrong and to get her to the hospital in time.
 
That was the beginning of our mental health journey as a family — a journey that could have just as easily ended in tragedy that night.
 
I get a shiver down my spine as I type this: We were lucky. Very, very lucky. But parents shouldn't have to count on luck to keep their children safe. Not when we have so much knowledge about what is needed to prevent and treat mental health difficulties in children.  And not when our country has the financial resources to tackle this issue head-on.

Haven’t children and families waited long enough for Canada to get serious about investing in child and youth mental health? I think the answer is yes—which is why I am urging you to take a moment to write to your Member of Parliament to insist that some of Canada’s forecasted budget surplus be invested in child and youth mental health.
 
Partners for Mental Health has made it easy too: just complete the form here and a letter will be sent on your behalf. 
 
We need to get thousands of people raising their voices in order to send a strong signal that Canadians care about this issue.  We need to let them know that counting on luck isn’t good enough. Canadian children and families deserve better.

- Ann Douglas

Note: A copy of this letter has been sent to supporters of Partners for Mental Health, a mental health charity that is seeking to "transform the way Canadians think about, act towards and support mental health and people living with a mental illness." 

Ann Douglas is the author of Parenting Through the Storm: How to Handle the Highs, the Lows, and Everything in Between (a guide to parenting a child with a mental health, neurodevelopmental, or behavioural challenge). She is also an engaging and inspiring speaker who sparks important conversations about parenting and mental health.

"Don't forget about the siblings"

It was a message scrawled on a flip chart in a hotel hallway -- and a message I very much took to heart: "Don't forget about the siblings."

I had spent the previous two days attending a child and youth mental health conference organized by the Institute of Families for Child and Youth Mental Health. The focus of the conference was on redesigning the mental health care system in a way that supports families as they do the critical work of caring for a child or youth who is struggling with a mental illness. 

This particular message really hit home for me. Not only do I know what it feels like to be the parent of a child who is struggling with a mental illness, I know what it feels like to be a child who has a family member who is struggling with a mental illness.

You see, during my growing up years, my mom was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Her illness was quite severe. She was repeatedly hospitalized for weeks or months at a time. As a teenager, I found it difficult to make sense of her mood swings (to say nothing of my own). I often found myself feeling angry -- and then feeling guilty for feeling angry. It was a very confusing time. 

When my daughter's mental health struggles began during her early teen years, I worried about the impact her illness was having on her three younger brothers -- whether they were feeling short-changed as she stumbled from crisis to crisis, demanding most of our parenting energies and attention. Once again, I found myself experiencing feelings of anger, guilt, and confusion. 

These types of feelings are not uncommon. The parents I interviewed for my new book, Parenting Through the Storm, talk about how challenging it can be to balance the needs of other family members with the needs of a family member who is struggling -- and how critical it is to ensure that all family members are able to tap into the support they need to cope with an extraordinarily challenging situation. 

A family-centered approach to care recognizes this reality. It ensures that all family members receive support so that they, in turn, can continue to provide support to the family member who is struggling. When the family is doing better, the family member who is struggling does better (and vice versa).

The Institute of Families for Child and Youth Mental Health is leading the conversation in Canada about the type of support families need in order to thrive when a child or youth is struggling with a mental illness. You will find a number of helpful documents on their website spelling out the benefits of what they are calling a FamilySmart (TM) approach to care. It is a conversation that is long overdue and much needed -- and that has the potential to make a world of difference for children, youth, and families.

Related:

Jesse is a true-to-life and heart-wrenching short film by Toronto filmmaker Adam Goldhammer that deals with the joys and challenges of growing up with a sibling who is struggling. (Film description: "After her parents are killed in a car accident, twenty-two year old Kelly Turner finds herself in the overwhelming position of being the sole caregiver for her older brother Jesse who has autism.")

Ann Douglas is the author of Parenting Through the Storm: How to Handle the Highs, the Lows, and Everything in Between (a guide to parenting a child with a mental health, neurodevelopmental, or behavioural challenge). She is also an engaging and inspiring speaker who sparks important conversations about parenting and mental health.