 Minister Darcy we thank you for your leadership. We thank you for being here and joining us for this important conversation about school community mental health. Minister Darcy. Good afternoon and thank you for that wonderful welcome. As you now know I am British Columbia's first Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Canada's only and I've just been conferring with someone sitting next to me from the United States. We think the only Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions in North America. So that's pretty exciting. I'd like to begin by acknowledging that we are on the traditional territory of the Musqueam people, Musqueam, Slewa Tooth and Squamish people and we thank them for the opportunity to gather here today on their land for this very important meeting. I want to thank my good friend Minister Rob Fleming, the Minister of Education and his amazing team for organizing this year's conference. Last year's was a roaring success and from the part that I was able to listen in on this morning this one is going to be a great success as well. Thank you so much Minister Fleming and take a look at this room. About 200 people more than last year, 500 people and doesn't that just speak directly to the importance of this conference. It's really proof positive of how critically important it is to bring together as we have here today. The leaders and the leaders are all of you, the leaders, the team members from community all across the education sector, from child and youth mental health, from police, all of the people who have such a critical role to play in building safer schools, in building mental health and awareness and supporting our kids very early and making sure they get the support that they need when they need it. And all of you being here I think also speaks volumes to the dedication of every single person in this room and so I just want to begin by giving an enormous thank you to every single one of you for what you do every day to support children and youth in our schools. Let's hear it for all of the leaders in this room because as you heard earlier we are all leaders in this endeavor. I want to thank you for what you do every day to support, to guide, to stand up and to simply care for the students of this province. You're the educational and health professionals who help to navigate what is an increasingly complex world for young people and their families at times in their lives when they need it the most, at times in their lives when they're often the most vulnerable. You're the people who are making life better for kids across BC. You see their unlimited potential and how much we have to learn from them and you know better than most that the young people of this province have so much to offer and we are deeply grateful for the role that you play every single day. Now I know that they're not here yet today but I understand that tomorrow they're going to be about 40 young people attending the conference. How cool is that? Now I know many of you may I say young people I guess there's a definition for that. So many of you in this room could self-identify but I think we're doing a strictly official designation of what young people is but their role as you know is absolutely critical to helping us to create the programs and services that youth, that children and youth need. Their passion, their enthusiasm and from my experience their ability to just hone in zero in on the problem without a lot of extra words and say this would make a difference in our lives is so refreshing is so inspiring and is so critical to us coming up with the systems change that we really need that we really need for all of us. You know this conference is not about the why it's about how but we know that 70% of serious mental health issues develop before the age of 25. We know that only one in three of the 84,000 young people who are diagnosed with mental health or substance use issues are presently getting the support that they need and we know how critically important it is to understand and for all of us to totally absorb and integrated into our work the understanding of what intergenerational trauma means for indigenous children and youth the result of our dark history of colonization and racism and residential schools. We also know you all know how important it is to build the growing understanding of adverse child childhood experiences into all of the work that we do and you also know very well that mental health issues and addiction issues often go hand in hand and we know that tragically the poisoning of the drug supply today in British Columbia with more and more lethal drugs on the street every day is driving the overdose crisis that tragically took the lives of 16 children under the age of 18 this past year. That 16 young people robbed of their futures its 16 families robbed of the children that they love. What all of this tells us is that it is so critically important that we start early and that's what today is really all about that we start early with every aspect of what that means in order to support our children. What it tells us is that early identification and early intervention are absolutely absolutely critical to the future well-being of young people in BC and it also tells us that bringing down the walls of silence that still exists to to to great an extent about mental illness and about substance use starting in our schools by normalizing the conversations about mental health issues and about substance use is absolutely absolutely critical and I'm so excited as I hear more from the Minister of Education all the time the way that mental health issues and substance use issues are being integrated into the curriculum and that they will be in the coming months extended through entirely through K to 12 because we know that stigma still stands in the way of young people reaching out for help it stands in the way of their families reaching out for help. In the nine months I think it's only nine months since the last conference happened our ministry the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions has been busy on a number of fronts our major focus has been developing a mental health and addiction strategy with a central focus on child and youth mental health and a central focus on building partnerships with indigenous people in order to support mental health and wellness in indigenous communities and listening to the voices of youth listening to the voices of family listening to indigenous communities and listening to the voices of people in this room and your counterparts across the province has been really central in that work that we've been doing and you'll remember last year New Brunswick was here people from New Brunswick were here where they've really transformed I think it's fair to say their system for delivering mental health and substance use supports child and youth mental health they've really transformed their system by building these integrated service teams and we're certainly also learning from jurisdictions like New Brunswick as well as learning from the really exciting pilot projects and best practices that exist in many school districts across BC and what we've heard loud and clear from everybody is that having quality supports available is imperative both in the community and in our schools where young people spend most of their time so that students don't just survive but they thrive because and I can never stress this enough when a young person needs help and when there's when they speak their truth the last thing they need to hear is take a number the last thing they need to hear is take a number and we know how much this matters to the health of literally thousands of British Columbia so we've taken the time to get it right but as a government we aren't waiting until we have this long term perfect plan in place before we start acting and today I was thrilled to announce together with my colleague Minister Rob Fleming three million dollars for programs that will help support new school based mental health programs focused on prevention wellness promotion and early intervention and that funding will support wellness initiatives to go to all 60 school districts and independent schools including grants for staff training sessions parent information nights new resource materials and student workshops because we know that when we address social and emotional learning early students and their families will benefit for years to come and also today on behalf of our colleague Katrina Conroy and the Ministry of Children and Family Development we were also able to recognize the new ease program which all of these acronyms in school everybody's got them but I think the ones in education are some of the best the new ease program ease which stands for everyday anxiety strategies for educators is a made in BC program designed specifically for our teachers the program will help K to seven students experiencing anxiety to learn strategies to build resiliency and ease is available to teachers in every school district across the province and not the good news is nine hundred teachers have already registered so I also want to tell you about some other exciting initiatives that our ministry has moved forward on since the since last year's conference we to ensure that more at-risk youth in Metro Vancouver area have access to the mental health and addictions counseling that they need we've we're supporting agencies like the Dan's Legacy Foundation and with our support they've been able to double the number of therapists and expand significantly their successful therapeutic programs mountainside secondary I was just chatting with where's mountainside sitting I think over there yes they are they're waving at you an alternative school in North Vancouver which is now the focal point of a special two-year demonstration project that began in September and I gather they're really cooking with gas they've got good news already to support so I hope that you hear about that mountainside is working in very very close partnership with foundry's North Shore Wellness Center and other community partners in order to make sure that students get the right supports in one place under one roof when they need them the these there are great things happening and you all know that and you're all the purpose of this conference is really to learn about systems thinking and to take some of these exciting things that are happening and spread them out and scale them up so that really does become system change so great things happening at mountainside at Maple Ridge pit meadows and other school districts and we really the purpose of this conference really is to build on those successes and speaking of foundry I know foundry folks are here and they've got a table in the lobby is foundry in the room or they're outside yes they are they're at the back and they're waving if you haven't stopped by foundry please do so we now have seven foundry centers in place in British Columbia and four more are in the works Richmond Terrace Penticton and Ridge meadows and hopefully more you'll hear about more in the coming weeks and months and for those of you aren't familiar with them foundry wellness centers are one-stop shops for youth age 12 to 24 you walk in that door whether it's primary care you need you you know you may need to see a doctor nurse practitioner but you don't want to go to your parents family doctor it may need it may be mental health issues it may be maybe substance use it could be social supports you're struggling in school you walk in that door you get to see somebody right away and they have wraparound services that support you all under that one roof and absolutely central to that model of foundry is the partnerships that they've built and that they are continuing to build and strengthen with school districts with community agencies with health authorities with government ministries with indigenous leaders and age and organizations in their communities and these integrated service teams and their truly impressive peer support programs are really in my opinion the critical ingredients in foundry's present and future successes already foundry centers have helped thousands upon thousands of young people to help to turn their lives around young people like Matt who I've had the opportunity to meet several times who literally has his life back because of the support that he received from the amazing inner city youth team at foundry Vancouver Grandville at the age of 20 Matt was living alone in the downtown east side in the grips of severe addiction the team at the foundry center helped to support Matt back to wellness unlike too many people and I'm going to tell you the story thank you for applauding for foundry this team saw Matt's potential as you do they saw him as a person they saw him as a young man full of opportunity and hope they didn't strictly see him through his addictions they didn't define him by his addictions and that's so important so Matt received medication assisted treatment for his opioid use disorder together with therapy and a range of other supports that put him back on track he has since started post-secondary education and he's planning to become a nurse and today Matt is giving back to foundry he's giving back to his community he's working as a peer support and family engagement coordinator to help other youth who are struggling with addiction and this is the true meaning of peer supporting peers through some of the most difficult and trying times of their lives so let's give it up for foundry shall we they're doing amazing work and I know in the communities where they do exist they're doing it in very close partnership with school districts which is so absolutely critical as a government we are committed across the board to implementing the recommendations of the United Nations declaration for declaration on the rights of indigenous people and the calls to action of the truth and reconciliation commission in all of our work and so as a ministry we're working in close partnership with indigenous communities to support mental health and wellness programs specifically for indigenous children and youth programs that are culturally appropriate programs that are community driven and and programs that are nation based indigenous people have said to us loud and clear as they have had to all of you I'm sure nothing about us without us and they've also said when we're talking about the social determinants of good health including good mental health and wellness that self-determination is a critical determinant of a better health and wellness in indigenous communities so that means we've been working in close partnership to develop community based programs to address the impact of the overdose crisis for example many of them bring together elders and youth as well as traditional healing and treatment centers that we're partnering with indigenous communities and the federal government to develop our government is has allocated some significant funding for indigenous child care culturally based indigenous child care additional funding for Aboriginal Friendship Centers and historic investments in indigenous languages and housing is also so critically important and I'm very proud to say that we're the first provincial government in Canada to invest in supportive housing for indigenous people on and off preserve because when families thrive children are able to thrive and they're not able to thrive unless their families are as well it goes without saying that tackling the stigma that still surrounds mental health and addictions is also central to everything that we do we know that shame and stigma and we've used the language stigma for a long time but in some of the engagement that I've done in multicultural communities they've said to me you need to talk about shame as well because it often runs much much deeper than this intangible thing called stigma so we know that shame and stigma keep young people and adults from opening up about that about what it is they're struggling with we know that shame and stigma prevent people from reaching out for help when they need it and we know that shame and stigma about drug use leads to people to use alone to overdose alone and to die alone so bringing down the walls of stigma bringing tackling those very real issues of shame and stigma surrounding mental health and addictions starting with children and youth is about making their lives better and it's also about saving their lives you may have seen or heard some of the posters the TV ads the radio ads the bus shelter ads from our anti-stigma campaign on radio well in all social media one of them says cousin student drug user friend people who use drugs are real people get involved get informed get help go to stop overdose bc dot c a and that's a website I would refer you to because there are a lot of valuable resources there about how we have courageous conversations with people that we love or people in our care students in schools about drug use other jurisdictions like Toronto have essentially plagiarized our ads and we're pleased about that I know plagiarism is a challenge in schools but you know we're thrilled and we wish the entire government of Ontario would plagiarize what we're doing around drug use and about mental health and addictions what do you think we've also joined forces with the Vancouver Canucks and the BC Lions because they're such important role models and they're very important partners now for us in changing the way youth and adults think about people living with mental health and addictions we know we have an enormous amount of work to do to build that comprehensive system of mental health and addictions care that people of all ages in British Columbia need and deserve and after a decade and a half of neglect I can't promise you that it's going to happen overnight but we are taking some very important first steps and as a government and I know that this is this conference is all about breaking down silos so as a government I want you to know that we are working across ministries and breaking down those silos in all the work we do around child and youth mental health but also working across government to tackle the social conditions that are such that affect mental health and well-being and substance use in a very big way because we certainly recognize as every single one of you do that the challenges that students are living with don't begin or end in the classroom so we're taking action on a wide variety of fronts that is making life better for children and families across BC we're tackling homelessness and building supportive housing for the most vulnerable individuals and families in the province we're providing more support for youth aging out of care who are at great risk of developing severe mental illness and substance use we're we've embark boldly on the first new social program in a generation a widespread affordable high quality child care system which is so critically important especially to our most vulnerable young people so that they can get a good start in life we've also created in human rights commission this one not just a complaint based mechanisms but a proactive mandate to tackle systemic racism and homophobia and transphobia and discrimination in all its forms all of which affect the mental health and well-being of children and youth in a big way and and we have a ministry now finally responsible for poverty reduction for the very first time in British Columbia very first time and we've adopted a very ambitious goal and that goal is to reduce poverty for the population at large by 25% by 2015 and for children by 50% by 2015 and you know best of all that children who come to school hungry can't possibly learn and thrive and grow to their best potential their full potential so I want to just conclude by saying that all of the work that we're doing across government now and in the future could not possibly be achieved without your collaboration and your determination to make life better for kids right across British Columbia whether you are teachers or school counselors parents school trustees administrators police and I'm sure that I've left people out all of you in every community across this province have shown an unwavering commitment to create a safe and supportive environment for students so I know that they're simple words but they can't be said often enough I thank you from the bottom of my heart thanks so much have a wonderful wonderful conference