Yes. With that, we need to integrate our services. We can't be working in silos. I think that's really important. It's important across things like child protection and health. We need to have integrated services for sure. That's our best efforts. We need to continue to talk about mental health and reduce the stigma, but we also need to have those conversations early on with children.
As one of the other witnesses said, we need to be checking in on children. We need to be giving them the tools and the language and their own ability to identify when they need help. These feelings that they have inside might be anxiety. They might not be able to identify them as anxiety, so if we make it as normal...that we all have these feelings, and sometimes anxiety is healthy and helpful and sometimes it's too much and it makes things harder for us. Giving those children the tools to know that these things are normal and healthy reduces the stigma. It also gives them the ability to communicate to us instead of having it come up in unwanted behaviour or other problems. It might take some time for a teacher or parent to recognize that it isn't defiant behaviour, that the child is struggling with a mental health problem. Is it anxiety or depression? Whatever it may be, it's surfacing in perhaps a behaviour that is identified as unwanted.
