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Walking for children’s mental health awareness

April 30, 2014   ·   0 Comments

In a bid to create awareness for Children’s Mental Health Week, New Path Youth and Family Services in Alliston is holding their first annual walk on May 9.

The awareness walk will begin at 10:30 a.m. at two different locations starting from G.A. Wright Field or Alliston Union Public School and then heading down Main Street.

The walk will then congregate at the Pavilion with wellness activities, a local dance school stopping by, relaxation, painting banners and snacks donated from various local outlets. Kids will be represented in the walk from all public schools in Alliston, with some help from some of the high school students at Banting.

Children’s Mental Health Week happens every year, but Lisa Hicking Miller, the supervisor of South Simcoe programs at New Path, said this is the first time for an event of this scale in Alliston. “It’s really trying to promote activities in the communities and in schools to raise awareness for children’s mental health issues and obviously break down the stigma that’s associated with mental health issues,” she said. “I think we talk about mental health a little bit easier when it comes to adults, although I still think it’s a difficult within the adult population, but for kids especially, it’s much more prevalent than people realize.”

Hicking Miller said about 1 in 5 children in Ontario has a diagnosable mental health issue, making for about 33,000 kids in Simcoe County. New Path sees roughly 4,000 children each year within schools, their office-based program and their residential program in Cookstown.

“We want people to be aware that this is an issue that’s impacting the youth in their community. It’s pretty prevalent,” Hickling Miller explained. “If we can get the little kids talking about it and saying, ‘I’m stressed out and I need to learn how to deal with that’ then that’s going to help them be able to not have a development to depression, anxiety or some other way of coping with those things.”

Research has shown that early intervention is important in providing kids with a hopeful and healthy future. In a release, New Path said about 75 per cent of children and youth who receive counseling and treatment at community mental health centres show improvement. But Hicking Miller said there is still lots of work to be done. “I think it’s a significant health issue that does not get enough air time or enough funding and enough conversations happening,” she said. “It’s impacting kids and youth. The more awareness that we can raise and the more conversations that we generate, the more comfortable people are going to be and seek out services. We have a lot of good things happening in Simcoe County, but we have limited resources to do that with.”

Anybody can participate in the walk and if you would like more information on the event or how to get involved, contact Lisa Hickling Miller at 905 458-4338 ext. 230, e-mail lhickling@newpath.ca or visit their website at www.newpath.ca

By Jeff Doner

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