One in four children and youth ages 15-24 will experience a mental health illness and research shows that 75% will not receive care in a timely manner. This results in more and more use of hospital emergency departments. In fact, in BC, there are an estimated 16,000 pediatric visits to emergency departments each year that are due to a mental health or substance use concern: an increase of 16 % in the past 3 years. That equates to 44 visits per day.
At Child Health BC, we are continuing to work with our network and health authority partners to support children's mental health and together we have developed a number of clinical resources and tools.
They can now be found here: