This poster initiative is one step Kids Help Phone is taking to address feedback heard when a team of counsellors visited five Ontario Aboriginal communities. They traveled to Moose Factory, Serpent River, Toronto, Thunder Bay, and Kettle and Stony Point hoping to learn how to better engage the youth living there and to gain a deeper understanding of the realities they are facing. They often heard from young people in those communities that Kids Help Phone’s youth outreach materials did not speak to the experiences of Aboriginal youth.

With the assistance of a grant from the Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion and Sport, knowledge gained during these visits will also help expand Kids Help Phone’s counselling approach with Aboriginal youth.

“Aboriginal youth are youth – their context is different, but youth share similarities across all cultures,” says Todd Solomon, Clinical Director, English Language Services at Kids Help Phone. “There are similar experiences and feelings that many kids go through, no matter what part of Canada they’re living in, but how Kids Help Phone’s counsellors respond to those calls depends on the context of the kid who’s calling.”

What Kids Help Phone wanted to learn was how to better serve this fast-growing young population: almost half, or 46 per cent, of the Aboriginal population in Canada is under the age of 24, compared to 31 per of the country’s non-Aboriginal population. And while all young people experience feelings of frustration, sadness, worry, and uncertainty as they grow up, for many Aboriginal youth, these feelings are compounded by isolation, displacement, or unequal access to education.
“We wanted to give a voice to the kids to help shape a better service for them,” Solomon says. “The experts on issues are the kids, which is why we went directly to them.”

What Solomon and his team often found on these visits was that the need for a confidential youth counselling service is paramount.

“I came to Toronto 11 years ago,” says Springwater Hester-Meawassige, Youth Services Manager at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto and Healthy Communities Project Assistant at Kids Help Phone. “Going back home to Moose Factory was an eye opener. The reserves are small and everybody knows your business. Even though the communities are isolated, they aren’t anonymous. It’s not uncommon that the local youth counsellor is a friend’s family member, or your own family member. Being reminded of that underscored the value of Kids Help Phone as an anonymous resource.”

Solomon echoes that. “Many youth informed us that in the remote communities, we may be the only service that’s realistically available for them. Understanding that context means we have no choice but to adapt the way we support them.”

i have alot of mixed emtions. sadness, lonely, anger... i get the kinda sad where i dont even sleep at night. i figure what's the point? im just going to be doing nothing, all by myself the next day. i dont kno. i just had to write this to get my feeligns out.. i am so so sick of being sad. i could cry my eyes out right now..

On Sunday, May 2 2010, 20,000 participants are expected to take to the streets of 55 Canadian cities, for the 9th annual Walk for Kids Help Phone in support of the tens of thousands of young people who reach out to the service every year, looking for help; sometimes looking for a lifeline. A respected national charity with internationally sought-after expertise, Kids Help Phone had, in 2009, on average 640 direct phone and online contacts a day. Like this one:

I have just been diagnosed with cancer, I am extremely scared in my situation. I am not only scared to tell my friends but I am scared about dying. I cannot tell my friends about this because I do not want them to treat me different. I am always all smiles maybe I just haven't gotten used to the fact that I am now a cancer patient. Though there is no solution to my problem could you possibly give me suggestions on if I should tell my friends and How to get my mind off of this?

The Walk for Kids Help Phone is the counselling service’s most important fundraising event of the year. The 2010 goal is to raise $3M, a vital 25% of its operating budget, in order to remain there for the young people of Canada who are dealing with increasingly complex issues. The funds raised go directly to support the work of Kids Help Phone skilled, professional counsellors; respond immediately to kids’ needs, explore options and equip them with the skills to meet life’s challenges.

Like mental health.

In 2009, more young people contacted Kids Help Phone about mental health issues than about issues related to peers, family, or sexuality. In fact, from 2008 to 2009, Kids Help Phone recorded a 4% jump in the incidence of contacts from children and youth that were seeking information or support around issues related to mental and emotional health. 

The 2010 Kids Help Phone study, Mental Health Literacy: Kids in Canada Talk About Mental Health shows that only half of the respondents would seek out help if they were dealing with intense feelings, or were worried about their mental health. Given how common mental health issues are in young people – research indicates that approximately one out of every five people struggle with mental health problems before the age of 18 – this finding is concerning.  The importance of an anonymous and confidential service like Kids Help Phone is once more demonstrated by the young people of the survey who clearly identified the conditions needed to make reaching out a possibility.  They are

• Having the reassurance that all you say stays secret.
• Knowing that you wouldn’t be judged.
• Knowing that you could actually get the help you need to feel better.

Mental health is just one of the many issues that youth in Canada are talking to Kids Help Phone counsellors about. That’s why the Sunday May 2nd Walk for Kids Help Phone fundraising event is critical to ensure the counselling service continues providing the immediate support that all kids need, that all kids deserve.

Walk for Kids Help Phone is being held Sunday May 2 2010, in locations across Canada including:

• British Columbia: Fraser Valley, Gibsons, Kelowna, Nanaimo, Vancouver, Victoria
• Alberta: Calgary, Edmonton, Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Red Deer
• Saskatchewan: Moose Jaw, Regina, Saskatoon, Yorkton
• Manitoba: Winnipeg
• New Brunswick: Moncton, Saint John
• Newfoundland and Labrador: St-Johns, Corner Brook, Marystown
• Nova Scotia: Halifax, Kentville, New Glasgow, Sydney
• Ontario: Arnprior, Barrie, Chatham, Durham, Hamilton, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Mississauga, Niagara, Ottawa, Owen Sound, Quinte, Sarnia, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Windsor, York Region
• Prince Edward Island: Charlottetown
• Quebec: Montreal, Quebec City, Sherbrooke, Victoriaville
• Saskatchewan: Regina, Yorkton

To walk, pledge or volunteer, please log on to www.walkforkidshelpphone.ca

Kids Posts

I am feeling very suicidal and dont know what to do. I dont want to end up back in the hospital again. I just want to go to sleep forever and never wake up. My stumach feels weird. My head is spinning. And I cant get these suicidal thoughts out of my head. I am sick of feeling this way. Ive tried ignoring the thoughts. Ive tried changing the way I think. Ive tried to be happy but it seems impossible. I just want to DIE. Please help please.

I'm depressed. and I decided I had to reach out for help and tell my mom but she freaked out, she started yelling that I needed to go to a mental hospital and she would get child services to take me. I panicked and told her I was just exaggerating. She went with it and we never talked about it again. But nothing has changed. I'm still depressed. I'm scared to tell my therapist because I can't let my mom find out. The time I told my mom I truly felt like my whole world was crashing down around me...What should I do?

I don't know what to do about my mom. She's very sick. She takes 28 pills a day, honestly, and I feel really bad for her. The doctor has told her not to get stressed or else she might have a heart attack or stroke and die. It's so hard to do because she gets mad at such little things. I can't fight back or else she might die. Everytime I do something wrong, she either calls me stupid or yells a lot and tells me that I can't do anything right, or says that my friend's are so much better than me.. I don't want to retaliate because then her stress levels will get even higher and make her shout more.

my grandad just passed away it wasn’t sudden and it was awhile ago but sometimes i  feel like nothing matters and cry for HOURS and HOURS i just cant stop  then when i finally do i'll see my dad or someone and i'll start crying all over again, this isnt my first loss and i know that eventually it will fade but this is the worst its ever been. i got to see him one last time in the hospital a week before he left but it feels like he was there one minute and gone the next . how can I stop feeling so bad?