The Childhood Mental Health of One

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the interdependence of children's schooling and their mental health, with each child being unique in response to pandemic-related disruptions. There is a will and a financial path forward to work across sectors to promote a mental healthcare model that champions the unique challenges facing each child. This model requires individualized care plans and proactive outreach to children who are reluctant to disclose their suffering. Changing Assumptions about Childhood Mental HealthAn influential report entitled COVID-19: Recommendations for School Reopening was published by The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto five months after Canada's first reported case of COVID-19 (Science and Bitnun 2020). The report put the spotlight on childhood mental health in a way that eclipsed the media attention paid to later scientific papers on the same topic. Due to the lockdown and associated school closures, the SickKids' report speculated that, because schools were closed, "increased rates of depression, trauma, drug abuse and addiction and even suicide can be anticipated" (Science and Bitnun 2020: 3).The June 2020 report was cited by many observers across North America to argue that all children need in-person schooling and that school closures carry severe mental health consequences for all children. Absent from most media commentary on this report was a reference to its conclusion:

From the Editors

“…From there we move to a few topics that remain top of mind for healthcare in 2023, including cybersecurity, primary care and, of course, lessons learned from the pandemic. As usual, we include our featured columns from ICES (Rochon et al 2023) and the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) (Costante et al 2023), as well as our colleague Neil Seeman (Seeman 2023).…”