Status of Women committee  As I mentioned, we hear from young people between the ages of five and 13 who are thinking or talking about suicide. Again, the important thing to me about that is, when a young person reaches out, we have this unbelievable moment to help them—the fact they are willing to talk ab

Status of Women committee  I think part of what we have seen, particularly over COVID, is people all across the world looking to e-mental health and digital health as a solution to their challenges. When we think about that stepped care model, digital health is fantastic for a lot of those lower acuity cha

Status of Women committee  That is such an important question. It's interesting. We are not seeing young people name it eco-anxiety, or climate change anxiety right now. What we are seeing, certainly, when we experience any kind of disaster related to climate, whether it is wildfires or flooding, we see a

Status of Women committee  Thank you. I think one of the things would potentially be for the federal government to recommend programming within schools. There are examples in the U.K. Their helpline, Childline, is in every single classroom in the U.K. Right now, with a program like what Kids Help Phone

Status of Women committee  I'll quickly add two things. One is that, while it is a provincial responsibility when we think about health care and mental health care, I think there is a critical role for the federal government to end inequities based on where you live and to end duplication in spending. I

Status of Women committee  You bring up such an important point. It's something that we've talked about for years as it relates to cyber-bullying. Often, as a parent or a caregiver, your first response when a young person in your life is being cyber-bullied is to take away their device, or to say that the

Status of Women committee  Yes. About 5% of our contacts for girls from age five to about 16 are specifically about sexual violence. I think one of the big things, which was just being spoken about, is around that education, particularly for younger girls, to even have the name that it was sexual violence,

Status of Women committee  Yes, we have seen really significant increases in the volume of young people coming to us, and also in the ways they are coming. We continue to see very high volumes on our phone line, but we are the only 24-7 texting service in Canada, so we have also continued to see very high

Status of Women committee  Yes, up until a year ago, Kids Help Phone offered all our services in English and French. Because of a partnership with the federal government, we've been able to add Mandarin and Arabic. With the recent war in Ukraine, we've added Ukrainian and Russian. We also want to recognize

Status of Women committee  That's a great question. All of us in the charitable sector really appreciate funding that is undesignated, which allows us to use it in the ways we most need. In order to be successful and build scalable solutions, you have to have a funding model that takes in government sup

Status of Women committee  The last thing is that we have to continue to ensure that we are making investments in evidence-informed, non-duplicative services, so that we are ensuring that young girls and women can access high-quality services regardless of where they live in Canada, I will end my comments

Status of Women committee  Thank you so much to Madam Chair, members and staff of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. I am thrilled to be here today. My name is Alisa Simon and I am with Kids Help Phone. For over 33 years, Kids Help Phone has been on the front lines hearing from young people f