This week marks two important awareness days focused on prevention and community support.

Sept. 9 is International Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) Awareness Day. This day is part of FASD Awareness Month, which was officially recognized by the Canadian government in 2020. It advocates for better diagnosis and support for individuals with FASD, bringing attention to the disorder and highlighting the importance of avoiding alcohol during pregnancy. This year’s theme, Everyone Plays a Part: Take Action!, promotes healthy pregnancies and encourages everyone to work towards building a society that better supports individuals with FASD. To learn more about preventing prenatal alcohol exposure, see Vol. 5, No. 2 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.

Sept. 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day. Established in 2003 by the International Association for Suicide Prevention in association with the World Health Organization, this day aims to inspire open and honest discussions about suicide. It promotes a cultural shift from stigma and silence to understanding and support. The day’s core message — that suicide is preventable — encourages families, advocates and communities to engage with policy-makers to ensure suicide prevention remains a public health priority. To learn more about suicide prevention for young people, see Vol. 16, No. 4 and Vol. 17, No. 1 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.

A systematic review by the Children’s Health Policy Centre provided promising evidence that transdiagnostic treatments — mental health approaches that treat multiple conditions at once — can address symptoms of two different mental disorders concurrently. These results suggest six implications for policy and practice:

• Use effective transdiagnostic treatments when there is more than one problem. Practitioners regularly encounter children who are experiencing more than one disorder. By using an effective transdiagnostic intervention, each concern can be addressed. Risk Reduction through Family Therapy (RRFT) reduced both substance use and posttraumatic stress symptoms, while Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT) reduced both substance use and behaviour concerns, including criminal offending. So these two approaches are a good starting point.

• Learn from young people’s engagement in transdiagnostic treatments. Some research has found that children with concurrent disorders are more likely to drop out of treatment. However, for the studies reviewed where participation was assessed, adolescents randomized to the transdiagnostic treatment completed more sessions than those receiving typical treatments. So, these interventions have the potential to increase treatment completion.

• Encourage parents’ involvement in children’s mental health care. Parents played a crucial role in the two most successful transdiagnostic therapies — RRFT and MDFT. Consequently, involving parents in treatment, beyond just these two therapies, may be beneficial for many young people.
• Ensure practitioners have the time and resources to deliver transdiagnostic treatments well. Practitioners with limited experience delivering transdiagnostic interventions will need time and resources to learn these new approaches and to learn to deliver them with fidelity. Policy-makers can help by ensuring that practitioners have the training and supports they need so children receive effective treatments for all the mental health concerns they face.
• Build on what works. Practitioners will also need to treat children experiencing combinations of disorders not addressed by currently available transdiagnostic treatments. While more research is needed on treating multiple conditions concurrently, practitioners can nevertheless still rely on proven interventions for each individual disorder — delivering both.
• Practise prevention. Concurrent disorders cause added challenges for children. Prevention should therefore be the highest priority — providing effective interventions for individual disorders as well as those that are concurrent. With more widespread use of effective prevention interventions, it may be possible to avert much unnecessary suffering for children and their families.

For more information, see Vol. 17, No. 3 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.

Since British Columbia declared a public health emergency in 2016 in response to the overdose crisis, over 16,000 people across the province have lost their lives to overdose.

As people in BC and around the world continue to lose loved ones, this year’s International Overdose Awareness Day focuses on bringing people together to take action under the theme “One big family, driven by hope.” This theme recognizes that overdose affects entire communities and works to break down harmful stigma that prevents people from seeking help.

Held annually on August 31, International Overdose Awareness Day is the world’s largest campaign to end overdose. It is driven by the principle that overdose is preventable, and it advocates for community-wide action. You can access campaign resources on the International Overdose Awareness Day website.

For children and youth, early intervention and substance use prevention programs are showing promise. In an article in The Conversation, researchers from the Children’s Health Policy Centre examined prevention programs that were effective in preventing opioid misuse, as well as other substance use in children and youth. Learn more.

According to the United Nations, half of the people on our planet today are 30 years old or younger. Nurturing the health and success of this significant demographic is key to solving both local and global challenges.

International Youth Day, held annually on August 12, celebrates young people’s achievements and recognizes the challenges they face. Established by the United Nations in 2000, the day also promotes meaningful youth participation in society.

This year’s event focuses on how youth contribute to their local communities and how those contributions can help support global development goals. The celebration recognizes that young people bring creativity and insight to community challenges. It advocates for including youth voices in local planning and decision-making processes.

The day also encourages local and regional governments to engage young people in policymaking and promotes mentorship opportunities to help nurture future leaders.

You can learn more about International Youth Day 2025 on the United Nations website.

The results from a Children’s Health Policy Centre systematic review suggest that some children experiencing multiple mental health concerns can be treated using a single intervention. The review looked at three different treatments — Brief Behavioral Therapy, Risk Reduction through Family Therapy (RRFT) and Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT). The most successful intervention, RRFT, reduced PTSD and substance use symptoms. MDFT also reduced substance use and criminal offending, according to one evaluation, although two other evaluations found benefits for behaviour but not substance use relative to comparison treatments. And while Brief Behavioral Therapy reduced anxiety symptoms and improved overall functioning, it did not outperform treatment-as-usual for depressive symptoms. For more information, see Vol. 17, No. 3 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.

Researchers examining Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT) have gone beyond studying its effectiveness, which includes reducing cannabis use and other mental health concerns for young people. They have also examined the link between practitioner fidelity — or how closely clinicians follow and implement the treatment as it was originally designed — and youth outcomes. In one study, independent raters reviewed videotaped sessions from 25% of MDFT cases to ensure a range of cases and sessions for each therapist.  Researchers found that MDFT adherence ratings predicted significant decreases in both youth substance use frequency and cannabis “dependence” at six months. (Because the study began in 2006, the researchers used this older “dependence” diagnosis in some of their analyses rather than the current term, cannabis use disorder.) These findings underscore the importance of delivering effective treatments as intended. Policy-makers can support practitioners to deliver with fidelity in typical community settings, for example, by ensuring needed training is available.

For more information, see Vol. 17, No. 3 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.

Children with multiple mental health conditions often face added challenges. Experiencing more than one mental disorder has been associated with an increased likelihood of attempting suicide and dying by suicide.

Children with concurrent disorders are also more likely to experience greater impairment overall as well as in specific situations, including at school, at home and in relationships. In addition, these children are at greater risk for experiencing poorer quality of life and more peer problems, and they are more likely to drop out of treatment and have poorer treatment responses than those with one disorder only.

These findings underscore the importance of ensuring that children with concurrent disorders receive effective treatments that address all of their mental health needs and that are delivered in a manner than encourages their ongoing engagement.

For more information, see Vol. 17, No. 3 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.

Researchers tracked the rates of concurrent mental disorders for more than 600 Indigenous children to determine if there were changes as they reached adolescence. The children, who were living in one of eight Indigenous communities in Canada or the United States, were assessed when they were ages 10 to 12 years, and then again at ages 12 to 15. At the first time point, 9.2% met criteria for two mental disorders. By the second time point, this percentage had increased to 26.6%. This latter concurrence rate was similar to other populations of children — potentially reflecting the strength of Indigenous children, given that many faced added challenges, including limited service access and economic disadvantage.

For more information, see Vol. 17, No. 3 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.

Image credit: CIRA

June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day — a time to celebrate the strength, innovation, culture and histories of First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples.

The day is held on the summer solstice in recognition of the many celebrations and community gatherings traditionally held by Indigenous peoples at this time of year. These gatherings include traditional cultural activities, parades, festivals, dancing, music and food. You can find a list of public gatherings and celebrations in BC at the Indigenous Tourism BC website.

Cultural connections — like those made during these annual summer celebrations — offer important mental health benefits for Indigenous youth. Mental health practitioners can promote well-being by supporting Indigenous young people to connect with their cultures, and policy-makers can also play a role by supporting Indigenous communities to ensure their cultures flourish. For more information, see Vol. 17, No. 2, page 3 (sidebar on enhancing mental health for Arctic Indigenous youth) of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.

Each June, Action Anxiety Day educates Canadians about anxiety, raises awareness and reduces stigma around anxiety disorders. It offers parents and educators an opportunity to empower children and youth with coping strategies and knowledge.

Anxiety Canada established Action Anxiety Day in 2021. Though Anxiety Canada closed their doors on April 30, 2025, the event lives on in schools and communities. Resources and educator toolkits will remain available on the Anxiety Canada website until March 2026.

A systematic review from the Children’s Health Policy Centre found that anxiety disorders are the most commonly experienced child and youth mental health concern. At any given time, approximately 5.2% of four-to-18-year-olds will meet criteria for an anxiety disorder. But evidence-based interventions such as cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) can help.

To learn more about preventing and treating anxiety in children and youth, see Vol. 19, No. 1 and Vol. 19, No. 2 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.