Did You Know?

Many forms of childhood adversity are avoidable. Preventing exposure to adversity is therefore always the main goal. But when prevention is not possible, effective treatments are critical. Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy is the most successful intervention when children have been maltreated or have been exposed to community violence. For more information, see Vol. 5, No. 3 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.

Nurse-Family Partnership is now being delivered in more than 60 communities as an enhanced public health service across four regional BC Health Authorities — an example of providing services proportionate to need. Girls and young women who are early in pregnancy and wish to enroll can contact:
• Fraser Health — Best Beginnings Program. Toll-free: 1-877-820-7444
• Vancouver Coastal Health — Public Health Prenatal Program. Toll-free: 1-855-550-2229
• Island Health — Right From the Start Program. Toll-free: 1-877-370-8699
• Interior Health — Healthy From the Start Program. Toll-free: 1-855-868-7710

Primary care practitioners are also welcome to contact these Health Authority programs to make referrals.

Conduct disorder involves serious behaviour problems such as aggression toward others. It causes heavy burdens for individual children and for their families. It also leads to heavy societal burdens — particularly when the added health care, education, social service and justice system costs are counted. Given these added costs, averting just one case of conduct disorder could save an estimated $4.2 to $7 million over the lifetime — enough to pay for new prevention programs. For more information, see Vol. 1, No. 2 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.

Although the teen pregnancy rate has declined in BC, many pregnant adolescents and young moms continue to experience added challenges, such a struggling with low income, high rents and insufficient social supports. As well, healthcare providers often fail to adequately reach this population. Nurse-Family Partnership works to address these challenges by actively supporting and empowering young families.

When a parent is depressed, the entire family is affected. And when a parent receives effective treatment, such as Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, the entire family can benefit. For example, children often experience more positive moods when the affected parent’s mood improves. For more information, see Vol. 4, No. 4 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.

The policy-practice-research collaboration behind the BC Healthy Connections Project — a scientific evaluation of the Nurse-Family Partnership program — is unique. It allows research to be put to use quickly to make a difference for kids and families. Policy and practice partners come from the BC Ministries of Health, Children and Family Development and Mental Health and Addictions, and from four BC regional Health Authorities (Fraser, Vancouver Coastal, Interior and Island Health). The research team comes from four universities (Simon Fraser, McMaster, the University of BC and the University of Victoria).

Policy-makers can use economic measures to help reduce problematic substance use for young people. In particular, setting higher taxes on beverages with higher alcohol content has been shown to reduce harmful drinking in young people. For more information, see Vol. 4, No. 3 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.

Developed more than 40 years ago by Dr. David Olds, Professor of Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Preventive Medicine and Nursing at the University of Colorado, Denver, Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) involves nurses visiting young, low-income, first-time mothers in their homes, roughly twice a month. These home visits start during pregnancy and continue until children reach their second birthday. This program has now been helping US families for more than 40 years.

All children with mental disorders need to receive effective treatment. And innovative technologies can help — particularly for addressing service gaps in rural and remote communities. For example, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can be effectively delivered using handbooks and videos supplemented with telephone coaching to significantly reduce childhood anxiety. For more information, see Vol. 6, No. 2 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.

The success of the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) program has been documented in the United States, most recently in a study released July 24/17 by James Heckman, a Nobel laureate economist at the University of Chicago. By ages six and 12, children whose mothers received NFP were healthier and had better cognitive and social and emotional skills, he found. Mothers also had better mental health and parenting skills as a result of the program.