In the past couple weeks,
there has been three major announcements related to children’s mental health
that will be have impact for everyone.
While these announcements do have large influence on people with FASD,
they will make a difference in everyone’s lives.
The first
announcement was the Nanos study on alcohol consumption in Canada in the month
of March https://www.ccsa.ca/covid-19-and-increased-alcohol-consumption-nanos-poll-summary-report
and the corresponding announcement from the World Health Organization http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/alcohol-use/news/news/2020/04/alcohol-does-not-protect-against-covid-19-access-should-be-restricted-during-lockdown. Nanos found that drinking among adults ages
18-34 has increased by 1/5 over normal consumption or 21%. The WHO does make mention of the fact that
increased alcohol consumption can lead to higher mental health challenges and
alcohol-based disorders of which Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder would be
classified. Knowing alcohol consumption
has risen significantly in the past month, the second question to be asked
during this time of social isolation is can we expect to see a mini-baby boom
in the months of Dec-Feb 2020/2021? Obviously,
the importance of prevention conversation is key right now to lowering the
curve of FASD. If you find yourself in a
situation where you are having that conversation remotely, please know you can
direct people to CanFASD’s material on FASD prevention at https://canfasd.ca/topics/prevention/#About. When you consider 3-4% of our population
likely have FASD (Popova 2018) and FASD costs our country 9.7 billion dollars
per year (Thanh & Jonsson 2015), we want to be vigilant in helping lower
that curve as well.
The second piece of information
was in regards to Kids Help Phone. As
you may have heard, the federal government gave a lot of money to Kids Help
Phone to support children’s mental health.
Their primary role is to serve as intake workers and system navigators and
then do the referrals to the child’s local mental health unit for support and follow-up. This is brilliant and the way it should
be. If you are finding your child needs
mental health support, please call https://kidshelpphone.ca/ or 1-800-668-6868 and know you won’t be
dealing with some faceless counsellor but in fact, will get connected with a
local counselor. Finally,
the Rural FASD Support Network had the pleasure of connecting remotely with
Ella Haley, psychotherapist for Open Doors Children’s Mental Health in Lanark
County. Ella’s speciality is connecting
sensory integration and mental health.
We had the opportunity to hear why movement and exercise have large
impact on our mental health. Some of our
caregivers shared how distance learning for our children is helpful as long as
everyone has safe quiet places to retreat when necessary. Ella started with how our awareness of our
body in space, our balance and orientation and how our internal organs feel has
major impact on our ability to work and be with others particularly in
school. She then spoke about how
children with sensory modulation challenges can be found in four different
quadrants related to threshold and self-regulation and the primary challenges
they can face. She finished with some
general strategies for caregivers pointing out the key is creating a safe,
non-judgmental space for all with a desire to learn used in an empathic way. https://youtu.be/U4FlZrxE4A As
we go through this cultural shift with a focus on finding ways to connect in a
virtual manner, we do express our appreciation for all our frontline workers
particularly those who are working and living in long-term care homes,
hospitals, and prisons. We also thank
those who enable us to provides for our essential needs including our food
service people, truckers, transportation people, and grocery store workers. We know as Canadians; we have the ability to
do this and will be stronger in the end for it.
Stay safe and remain connected.
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