Question Period Note: Introduce a Nez Fund for Student Mental Health Fund

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• Our Government recognizes the significant mental health challenges being faced by post-secondary students, which have been exacerbated due to COVID-19.
• The Government is committed to strengthening the mental health and well-being of post-secondary students and aims to increase comprehensive access to services so that post secondary students can get the help they need, when and where they need it.
• I continue to engage with students, stakeholders and Canadians of all backgrounds, including individuals with lived and living experience to help raise awareness and advance the government’s commitment to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of post-secondary students.

The New Abnormal: Student Mental Health Two Years Into COVID-19
On September 26, the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations will issue a report commissioned in partnership with the Mental Health Commission of Canada on post-secondary student mental health.
The study, conducted by Abacus Data, surveyed 2000 post-secondary students across Canada from May 13 to May 27, 2022. It concludes that mental health challenges persist across Canadian post-secondary campuses and that while 1 in 2 students have accessed students having accessed mental health supports through their post-secondary institutions, significant barriers to accessing services remained, including long wait times, stigma, and confidentiality concerns.

The New Abnormal: Student Mental Health Two Years Into COVID-19 found that three quarters of student respondents reported that their mental health has been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, on par with 2021 levels.
The report also found that:
• 1 in 3 students reported that mental health services at post-secondary institutions do not meet the diverse needs of students;
• Top barriers to access included wait times, ignorance of how to access services, and quality of services, with 3 in 4 students unaware of how to access on campus services;
• The average student funds nearly half of their studies from both parental and personal savings, with only 15% of funding coming from student loans and grants.
• Rising financial pressures and pandemic-related challenges have continued to negatively impact student mental health, and students’ ability to adapt to ongoing student issues.

Why Post-Secondary Student Mental Health:

Almost two out of three mental health problems begin by age 25, which includes the period when many are studying at the post-secondary level. Post-secondary students face many challenges including increased workload, transition into adulthood, living away from home and financial difficulties. The 2019 National College Health Assessment by the American College Health Association found that 52% of post-secondary students in Canada felt so depressed that it was difficult to function (an increase from 46% in 2016). About 69% reported feeling overwhelmed by anxiety (up four per cent since 2016). About 16% reported having seriously considered suicide within the last 12 months (up from 13 per cent since 2016).
The COVID-19 pandemic has created particular challenges for students, who have been forced to adapt to remote learning, and have been distanced from personal supports and networks that are typically commonplace in a post-secondary setting. One year into the pandemic, about 84% of post-secondary students reported that the pandemic has added new, or exacerbated existing, mental health challenges. Throughout the pandemic, mental health concerns among this group have continued to increase: there was a noticeable increase in the number of students reporting feeling despair (+16%), overwhelm (+10%), and sadness (+6%) from the outset of the pandemic to Spring 2021. As of April 2022, Canadian students continued to report that their studies were extremely impacted by their mental health (49%), significantly higher than employed Canadians who reported that mental health was extremely impacting their work (31%).

Consistent with higher reported incidence of mental health issues, more post-secondary students are accessing mental health supports during the pandemic compared to before (this is also the case for the general population). While there is a wide range of supports and services offered at post-secondary institutions across Canada to promote student mental health and address mental health issues, capacity for providing comprehensive supports on-campus is limited, which impacts timeliness and accessibility of services and programs.

Evidence indicate that there is a need for a comprehensive and coordinated mental health plan for post-secondary students that covers the range of services from prevention to treatment, including peer support counselling and a range of self-management options (on-line applications, telephone) that can be accessed 24/7. Research also indicates that increasing mental health literacy and the building of life skills and resiliency are key to mitigating the high levels of stress during the transition to post-secondary institutions.

Government Actions and Investments to Support the Mental Health Needs of Youth:

Funding to the Mental Health Commission of Canada

The Government of Canada provides $14.25M annually to the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC), which was created in 2007 to act as a catalyst for improving the mental health system in Canada. The MHCC leads the development and dissemination of programs and tools to support the mental health and wellness of all Canadians by bringing together federal, provincial, and territorial governments as well as leading mental health organizations.

In 2020, the MHCC developed the National Standard of Canada for Mental Health and Well-Being for Post-Secondary Students, a set of flexible guidelines to help post-secondary institutions create environments that foster student mental health and well-being. The Standard can help post-secondary institutions better design their mental health policies and programs based on evidence, to share experience and knowledge, while simultaneously improving mental health literacy, building resilience and addressing student mental health issues before they worsen.

Campus Peer Support Pilot

The Government of Canada has also provided $2 million to the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) toward a three-year Campus Peer Support pilot project. University of Prince Edward Island, University of New Brunswick, Trent University, Medicine Hat College and the University of British Columbia were chosen by the CMHA for the pilot, and will work in close partnership with their local CMHAs, which bring expertise in peer-support programming.

The Campus Peer Support pilot project will empower post-secondary students with the tools they need to support each other’s well-being. The training material will be created with students, and peer trainers will be instructed to deliver the curriculum so that the project can continue beyond the pilot phase. The pilot is aligned with the new National Standard for Psychological Health and Safety for Postsecondary Institutions.

Funding to Provincial and Territorial Governments and Integrated Youth Services

The Government of Canada is investing $5 billion over ten years to improve Canadians’ access to mental health services (2017-2027). The investment is being provided directly to provinces and territories via negotiated bilateral agreements, informed by the 2017 Common Statement of Principles on Shared Health Priorities agreed to by FPT Ministers of Health. In it, Ministers of Health agreed to prioritize expanded access to community-based mental health and addiction services for children and youth as one of three priorities for the federal funding.

Eleven out of thirteen provinces/territories have identified youth focused initiatives, which could include integrated youth services, as part of their bilateral agreement action plans. Three provinces have specifically identified integrated youth services as part of their action plans.

Integrated Youth Services (IYS) models of care provide locally relevant, effective, youth-focused and integrated services for mental health/substance use within the community. One example of this model is the integrated youth hub. These hubs are easily accessible community-based “one stop shops” that provide an integrated suite of services, which can include peer support, mental health and primary care support and employment counselling, as well as support for navigating these systems of care. Each hub leverages existing services so the suite of available services varies by hub. There are currently 50 operational integrated youth hubs across Canada and 60 under development.

In addition, nine out of ten provinces have or are developing a provincial networks to implement and advance the integrated youth services model through the sharing of best practices. In some cases, this is done through the leveraging of a learning health system approach, where data is collected to continuously inform and improve equitable health outcomes by focusing on practices relating to equitable access to mental health services. Three of the most established networks are in British Columbia (Foundry), Ontario (Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario), and Quebec (Aire Ouverte) with BC and Ontario specifically identifying the use of bilateral funding to support these networks.

National Standards for Mental Health and Substance Use Services

Budget 2021 provided $45 million over two years, starting in 2021-22, to Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to help develop national mental health service standards, in collaboration with provinces and territories, health organizations, and key stakeholders.

On March 14, 2022, Health Canada announced a partnership with Standards Council of Canada (SCC) to develop national standards for mental health and substance use services, to help fulfil commitments made in Budget 2021. Standards will be evidence-based and developed through consensus-based processes that engage experts, health organizations, people with lived and living experience, and other key stakeholders. Standards are tools for supporting health providers in the delivery of high-quality and equitable mental health and substance use services, and will help to ensure a consistent level of care is provided. They will also help to formalize what Canadians can expect in terms of the quality of services, while providing an evidence-based framework for service delivery in priority areas.

SCC is coordinating the development of an integrated suite of national standards for mental health and substance use services in priority areas that align with the Common Statement of Principles on Shared Health Priorities (CSOP), which includes Integrated Youth Services. The Government has emphasized the importance of engagement with diverse stakeholders and promotion of health equity principles, which have been incorporated into the development process.

Pandemic-Response Initiatives

Wellness Together Canada

Health Canada invested $130 million from 2020-2022 in Wellness Together Canada, an online mental health and substance use support portal, and received $140 million in Budget 2022 to support the portal for two more years, beginning in 2022-23. Launched in April 2020, Wellness Together Canada provides free and confidential online mental health and substance use supports accessible 24/7 to individuals across Canada in both official languages. Interpretation services are also available during phone sessions in over 200 languages and dialects. Through Wellness Together Canada, individuals in all provinces and territories have immediate access to supports ranging from self-assessment, educational content and self-guided programming, to peer support and confidential sessions with social workers, psychologists and other professionals. Supports are provided online as well as by phone and text for those without internet access.

There are dedicated text lines for youth, adults and front line workers that provide immediate access to support. There is also a dedicated phone line for accessing Program Navigators that can assist with finding resources on the portal. Wellness Together Canada augments existing provincial and territorial services, and does not replace them. In January 2022, Wellness Together Canada launched PocketWell, which is a companion app to the online Portal.

Through the Portal and the app, children and youth (ages 5 to 29) are able to access mental health and substance use resources, including Kids Help Phone, which provides online, phone and text based support to young people who are in crisis or dealing with mental health issues.

Additional resources are being invested in Kids Help Phone ($15M over 36 months from April 2020 to March 2023) provide mental health support to youth in need during the pandemic.

As of August 15, 2022 over 2.64 million individuals across all provinces and territories have accessed the Wellness Together Canada portal in over 7.55 million web sessions. The new PocketWell mobile app has been downloaded a total of 28,075 times. Additionally, over 45% of registered clients of the portal are under 30, an age group that tends to underutilize traditional mental health services.

Support for the Mental Health Needs of Those Most Affected by COVID-19

Budget 2021 announced $100 million over three years to promote the mental health of those most affected by the pandemic, including youth. Funded projects are expected to begin in Spring 2022 and to reach diverse populations across Canada. Projects will support mental health promotion and mental illness prevention interventions, in addition to initiatives that build the capacity of service providers to deliver programming in safe, effective and trauma-informed ways.

Support for the Mental Health Needs of Children and Youth

Under the Health Care Policy and Strategies Program (HCPSP) at Health Canada, the federal government is providing funding to the following projects:
• $2M from 2021-2024 to the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) to develop and pilot a national specialized peer support certification program for use by post-secondary institutions to support student mental health.

• $6.8M from 2019-2024 to Foundry to help organizations implement integrated models of youth mental health care. This complements $9M in funding to Frayme from 2019-2024 to promote broader implementation of integrated youth services in Canada.

• $2M from 2021-2026 to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) to increase the spread of the Aaniish Naa Gegii: the Children’s Health and Well‐being Measure (ACHWM), co-developed with Indigenous partners to help measure the health and wellbeing of Indigenous children.

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