Alberta reviews COVID-19 pandemic s impact on kids as advocates call for action on declining mental health calgarysun.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from calgarysun.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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We have spent 15 months talking anecdotally about the impacts of the pandemic on our mental health, specifically about the impacts on our youth.
The fact is the collection of this information has been lacking pre-pandemic and has taken extra efforts among different groups to really get a picture, at least nationally, of what is happening.
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Children’s Healthcare Canada went to 14 different children’s hospitals throughout the country to see just what these frontline resources were experiencing.
DARTMOUTH, N.S. Grade 12 student Gabrielle Caya says some days are harder than others and weeks feel like they re blending together, as she learns from home during Nova Scotia s third wave of the pandemic. Just yesterday and the day before, this is the third day now where I m just so tired and drained, the 18-year-old explains. I have no motivation to do anything. Caya misses interacting with classmates and teachers in-person, or visiting friends and family. The founder of Children First Canada, a charitable organization that strives to improve the health and well-being of children and youth across the country, is sounding the alarm on mental health challenges young people are facing during the pandemic.
TORONTO Social isolation, school closures, and restricted access to sports and recreational activities have all taken their toll on children s mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Children s Healthcare Canada, there has been a 200 per cent increase in hospital admissions for substance use disorders and a 100 per cent increase in suicide attempt admissions compared to the year before. Canada s Children s Hospital Foundations has reported that 70 per cent of those between the ages of six and 18 said the pandemic has harmed their mental health in at least one area, such as anxiety or attention span. When kids are confined at home for weeks, sometimes months on end, cut off from their peers, cut off from physical activity, they re going to languish, Sara Austin, the CEO of Children First Canada, a national charity that advocates for the well-being of children, told CTV s Your Morning on Thursday.