That's a great question with a complicated answer. Some of what can be helpful in terms of understanding this issue is one of the suggestions I made, which is really more general education about what the range of normal is and what concerning sorts of behaviour or early signs of mental illness are. Part of the reason for thinking about that education broadly is so that the people who are coming to you for mental health services are the right ones who need that kind of help. That might close the bottleneck, getting the right people to the services that are needed.
Another suggestion might be this idea of broader training for people so that there is more access to mental health services.
Currently, the organization of mental health services is complex. I'd say the place where most commonly children or youth might present would be in their family physician's office. Making sure that family doctors have good knowledge and know about resources in the community is a really important way of getting people to the right services.
Within Hamilton anyway, the services are part of two Ontario ministries. Some are part of the Ministry of Health, and some are part of the Ministry of Children and Youth Services. That makes it complicated as well.
What I can say from the point of view of the Ministry of Children and Youth Services in Ontario is that they have an initiative where, within each region or within a number of specific regions of Ontario, they try to have a really good understanding of what's available in that community so that, at the end of this process, each parent in each community should know, “If my child has trouble, this is where I go and these services are available in the community”. It's called the lead agency initiative.
That's sort of broad. I guess the one thing I didn't talk about was waiting lists.