In our centre alone, if we just look at children coming into the shelter who are being affected by violence in their lives, our shelters alone don't specifically have.... I mean, we have our house child and youth counsellor available to support, but we really need services outside of our shelter services that are trauma-informed. Many of the children who come to us are displaying symptoms and behaviours that perhaps fall under the category of ADHD, ADD, or other diagnoses. When you line those up with the effects of violence on children, the behaviours are often directly related to that and not specifically to the other symptoms.
We'd like to see more access to trauma-informed mental health services for children. The sooner we're able to get the services to children following a traumatic event...because studies show that this is the best form of healing. Right now there is a long wait-list for children to get into programs, have assessments done, and get the support they need.