Updates

An early prevention program shows promise for preventing exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) for mothers and children, according to a recent article by the team from the Children’s Health Policy Centre.

Published in The Conversation, the article is based on new research examining the benefits of Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), a nurse home-visiting program for expectant mothers and their children.

“These findings come at a crucial time,” the article said. “IPV is occurring at epidemic proportions. Yet, supports for children and mothers remain inadequate and early childhood prevention investments remain sparse.”

To understand the impact of NFP on intimate partner violence exposure, a team of researchers led by Nicole Catherine, Associate Director of the Children’s Health Policy Centre, examined data from the BC Healthy Connections Project, the Canadian randomized controlled trial of NFP. The program involved the provision of frequent support visits from public health nurses to expectant mothers and their children throughout pregnancy and early childhood.

Upon entering the study in early pregnancy, more than one-third (38 per cent) of the participating mothers-to-be reported IPV exposure within the past year. “By the end of the trial, when children were age two years, significantly fewer NFP mothers reported IPV exposure (since last interview) and psychological distress (in the previous month),” the article said.

These findings, while exploratory, offer compelling evidence that policymakers should invest in research-backed approaches to early IPV prevention.

According to a 2014 study cited in the article, the economic burden of childhood IPV exposure totaled over $7 billion in a 10-year period — roughly $9 billion in 2024 dollars.

“These costs could have been averted by early childhood prevention programming,” the article said. “Yet in 2024, only 6.1 per cent of Canada’s health spending was allotted to public health, including prevention.”

Effective primary prevention programs could not only save taxpayers billions of dollars — these programs are desperately needed to ensure children and mothers do not experience avoidable harms from IPV exposure.

Read the full article.

The Children’s Health Policy Centre (CHPC) has released the final issue of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly — for now.

For 18 years, the Quarterly summarized the best available research evidence on a wide range of children’s mental health topics. The publication was funded by the BC Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD). The final issue — on anxiety treatments — was released on April 2.

“When we started the Quarterly we hoped it would continue and have long-term impact,” said Charlotte Waddell, Director of the Children’s Health Policy Centre and Professor Emerita in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University.

“Its duration speaks to our partnership with the Ministry, and to our shared commitment as researchers and policymakers to improving children’s mental health. We’ve had a fantastic run, and we’re proud of the impact the Quarterly has had.”

The CHPC released the first Quarterly issue in 2007. The vision for the publication was to highlight high-quality research on children’s mental health and to make it available to policymakers, practitioners and community members.

“We wanted to share research on children’s mental health in an accessible format,” said Waddell. “The Quarterly allowed us to make the research freely available — to policymakers and practitioners, yes, but also to parents and anyone else with an interest in children’s mental health.”

Over the years, the Quarterly covered many common childhood disorders like anxiety and ADHD. But it also looked at topics relevant to the national mental health conversation. For example, a recent issue on prevention of opioid use disorders formed the basis for an article published in The Conversation. This article led to further media coverage, reaching a national audience on the importance of early opioid use prevention.

Though Waddell and the CHPC team are sad to see the publication end, they are looking forward to continuing their research and engagements with policymakers. And they are leaving the door open for a possible return.

“MCFD wasn’t able to renew the Quarterly contract, but we intend to seek other funding. In the meantime, we have other initiatives underway to help encourage the best possible prevention and treatment programs for children in BC and beyond,” said Waddell.

For readers who may miss the Quarterly, Waddell points to the extensive archive of past issues, which will remain online indefinitely. The complete subject index will also remain available indefinitely.

“We are grateful to our readers for being there for children’s mental health,” said Waddell. “We hope the Quarterly library will continue to be a useful resource for many years to come, and we invite anyone who is interested in our work to stay connected with us. The Quarterly is on pause, but our team will continue sharing research and working to improve the lives of children and youth.”

You can view all past issues of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly in the online Quarterly archive.

A team of researchers from the Children’s Health Policy Centre (CHPC) have partnered with the Fraser Health Authority, Population and Public Health, to evaluate their new Enhanced Family Visiting (EFV) Program.

Led by Principal Investigator and CHPC Associate Director Nicole Catherine, the CHPC team aims to understand the experiences of those who took part in the EFV Program.

“The EFV Program was designed by Fraser Health to be more inclusive of diverse children and mothers,” said Catherine. “We now want to engage with mothers and nurses who participated in the program to learn about their experiences.”

EFV is an early prevention program designed to address avoidable childhood adversities. It is modelled on the Nurse-Family Partnership program (NFP), which involves intensive nurse-home visits starting in early pregnancy through to child age two years.

The CHPC team co-led the 10-year randomized controlled trial evaluation of NFP — the BC Healthy Connections Project — showing promising benefits for mothers and children by age two years. These benefits included reduced prenatal substance exposure; improved child mental health and language development, maternal mental health, and income; and reduced intimate partner violence exposure.

But while NFP is designed to reach young, English-speaking, first-time mothers experiencing disadvantage, the EFV Program serves a broader range of families. Those eligible for EFV also include Indigenous families, mothers with more than one child, older mothers, refugees and newcomers.

In collaboration with Fraser Health, the CHPC team will conduct research interviews with select EFV maternal clients to learn about their experiences with the program. The researchers will also survey EFV public health nurses to evaluate the delivery of the program. The survey questions will examine training, service implementation and additional resources needed.

The findings will help inform EFV program refinements to better reach and serve culturally diverse children and mothers who are experiencing disadvantage. Providing early prevention programs like EFV — for children experiencing disadvantage — is more cost-effective than later remediation. “It’s crucial that policymakers invest in effective early prevention programs to ensure that all young Canadians reach their potential,” said Catherine.

Funding effective prevention programs could significantly reduce youth drug use — that was the message shared by Adjunct Professor with the Children’s Health Policy Centre Christine Schwartz in an article published last week by CBC Health’s Second Opinion.

The article featured new research evidence showing that PreVenture, a school-based program developed by a researcher at the University of Montréal, produced a 35% reduction in the annual increase in the odds of teens developing substance use disorder, compared to a control group.

The piece also highlighted the need for sustained government funding to support and deliver programs such as PreVenture in schools across Canada.

Schwartz noted in her interview with CBC Health that policymakers are “increasingly turning to the research evidence” to evaluate drug prevention programs — and a growing body of evidence demonstrates the effectiveness of several prevention programs.

Second Opinion shared the link to a recent edition of The Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly in which the CHPC presented findings from an evaluation of two such programs: Strengthening Families and Project PATHS. The CHPC team found that they were not only successful in reducing opioid misuse, but that they also reached large numbers of young people, highlighting the benefits of school delivery.

The missing piece, Schwartz told CBC Health, is funding to maintain these programs and put them in place more widely. But she is optimistic that the CHPC’s prevention-focused message will continue to reach policymakers and shape the national dialogue on youth substance use.

“It’s great to see this evidence on the effectiveness of school-based prevention programs being shared in national media,” she says. “These programs increase the likelihood that young people can lead happy, healthy lives and make it less likely they will suffer harms from substance use later on. This is a conversation we need to be having as a country, and one I’m sure policymakers will be paying close attention to.”