More comprehensive data on children’s mental health services are greatly needed, including from BC and Canada. It would be especially beneficial to track the number of children with disorders, the specific services they are receiving over time, and their responses to treatment. This type of ongoing measuring children’s mental health status and access to services is crucial to inform planning. To address the service shortfalls and ultimately improve children’s mental health, better measurement is needed — and is overdue. In essence, “What gets counted counts.”

For more information, see Vol. 16, No. 2 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.