Ottawa, Ontario, Thursday, April 7, 2016

Thank you for inviting me to offer a few encouraging words before you start the real work of this conference. You are here to share and learn about the best practices in education and mental health that go hand in hand in the lives of our children and youths as they march toward adulthood.

We all know the statistics. One in five Canadians will be impacted by mental health difficulties individually, within family, or in the workplace. The economic cost is enormous. The mental suffering is a national tragedy in a country with so much wealth and opportunity. Seventy percent of mental health problems have their onset before the age of eighteen, while youth are still in school.

In a few short words, I would like to share with you some of what I witnessed last week during the Governor General’s official visit to Northern Ontario. Northern Ontario means Sault Ste. Marie to David and me, where we grew up. But this trip took us to Thunder Bay, Sioux Lookout, and North Bay.

Our last stop was North Bay, so I will start there. I visited the Indian Friendship Centre with a community Elder and Kathy Fortin, the CEO of the organization. Almost half the registered Indian population of Canada lives in Ontario.

The Friendship Centre is a lovely welcoming place with many rooms for counselling, 23 programs (some geared to education catch-up) and a large auditorium. The centre is culturally tuned to Aboriginal people but welcomes non-Aboriginal people as well. It was in that spacious auditorium that I witnessed what extracurricular intervention can do for education and mental health.

I walked into the gymnasium-auditorium to a dozen smiling faces of children as young as six, poised with his or her fiddle and bow, ready to play “Frank’s Delta Dream.” Most were Aboriginal, but there were non-Aboriginal children in the mix.

I could not help myself. I grabbed the hand of the Mayor’s wife and pulled her up to dance. What else are we supposed to do when we hear beautiful music?

Each of those child players had experienced some sort of trauma that was reflected in poor school performance, hyper activity or disinterest, UNTIL they began music lessons with Olga Rykov. Parents and teachers alike remarked on the changed behaviour. It is an important observation that the improvement in mental state enhances the classroom performance. Olga was obliged to move before the end of term. Rather than abandon the program, she teaches the children by Skype, an amazing use of technology. I watched the Skype lesson conducted seamlessly.

Children experience emotional pressure through racism, bullying, poverty and family dysfunction. David and I visited Héritage Public School and Odyssée Secondary Public School in North Bay. Francophones represent 30 percent of the region’s population.

In 2011, two senior students approached the student-success leader/teacher, Sylvia Vanier, to launch a progressive anti-bullying campaign called NONaubullying. It is now an integral part of the school fabric. Bullying clearly impacts both school performance and mental health.

The Odyssée anti-bullying club initiated the first Gay-Straight Alliance in a school north of Toronto. The Mayor declared Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week, awareness workshops were established, visits were made to surrounding communities to give sensitivity training, buddy benches for little ones were installed—these were some of the spinoffs from the first campaign.

Sylvie, the teacher-leader, was invited to Ottawa in 2013 to join Prime Minister Harper and other stakeholders ready to solve the bullying problem. This is an excellent example of how teacher-student cooperation resulted in significant action in the area of mental health.

In Sioux Lookout, David and I visited the state-of-the-art hospital called Meno Ya Win, designed by Aboriginal architect Douglas Cardinal, who also created the Canadian Museum of History. Meno Ya Win is an Anishinaabe term that connotes health, wellness, spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical wholeness. Isn’t that what every teacher and mental health worker wants in their students?

Teachers across the country will have to receive hundreds of children born to mothers with an opiate addiction. The Hospital in Sioux Lookout is addressing this problem in a special family-oriented unit that aims to limit the harm to the child.

Aside from the state-of-the-art birthing unit, Meno Ya Win Hospital has an excellent schooling program so any young person hospitalized can continue his or her educational program. Education is important even while in a hospital or under mental health care.

Because I have drawn from my recent observations in northern Ontario, the Indigenous context becomes more obvious. It was quite apparent in these communities that mental health was considered in the context of education. Mental illness can be the barrier to school achievement. Our children are in the care of teachers for all their growing years. Teachers can be an integral part of the diagnosis, science and treatment of mental health. The learning and sharing of best practices today will result in a more sensitive environment for our children to grow to healthy adults.

Thank you.