Ontario gov't adding mental health + addictions services in schools, communities and health centres across the province
Great piece of Monday morning news.
This morning, Minister Elliott announced announce an additional $174 million in funding to address the critical gaps in Ontario's system and to support patients and families living with mental health and addictions challenges.
This year's additional mental health and addiction funding will include:
- Providing children and youth with earlier and faster mental health and addictions help at schools and in the community;
- More housing support for people who are homeless and face mental health and addictions issues;
- New mobile crisis teams that will help police officers and other first responders manage sensitive situations when assisting people with severe mental illness; and
- Faster access to addictions treatment for all Ontarians.
Read more here.
Retrieved from Ontario Newsroom at https://www.ontario.ca/.
Great to hear!
This IS great news - but it follows the news that Public Health and other healthcare funding is being drastically reduced... the Prevention of Mental Illness and Mental Health Promotion is the ticket to decreasing the support and treatment needed in the future...
Any funding spent towards mental health and addiction will be money well spent. Mental health promotion and the work of public health has the potential to have a large reach and long-term benefits...even cost-savings!
The final report of Ontario's Mental Health & Addictions Leadership Advisory Council, Realizing the Vision: Better Mental Health Means Better Health, 2017, outlines recommendations to improve the mental health and addictions system in Ontario. The first recommendation is to Promote, Prevent and Intervene Early, as the prevention and early intervention of mental illness and the promotion of wellness offers the highest returns on investment for the system.
Public health agencies in Ontario are mandated to contribute to this work and the Mental Health Promotion Guideline recommends a tiered population mental health approach - promoting mental health and prevening mental illness in 80% of the population, while treating mental illness in 20% of the population.
Good news!
Funding is great news. Health promotion teaches people how to make the best healthy lifestyle choices. Through programs like Healthy Babies we can teach parents how to make those choices for their children. Learning early at home by modeling healthy behavior. When you make healthy lifestyle choices you are better equipped to handle the stresses of life.The big issue is finding a way to help the average family afford healthy choices and tackling the underlying issues that have caused increased mental illness. Teaching all children cognitive therapy at an early age may reduce adult mental health illnesses in the future. We have to delve into the reasons for increased anxiety in children. We need to get to the heart of the problems. We all have our theories but we need substantial facts to get the messaging across.