About Child & Youth Mental Health

A new brochure, What is Child and Youth Mental Health Services?, outlines the steps for children and teens and those around them to access regional mental health services. Copies are available by contacting your local Child and Youth Mental Health office or online by clicking here. This brochure is available in several languages, click here to view.

Research shows that the average overall community prevalence rate for mental disorders in children and youth is 15%.

This means that in BC, approximately 140,000 children and youth experience mental disorders causing significant distress and impairing their functioning at home, at school, with peers, or in the community.

These mental disorders include any anxiety disorder, conduct disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, any depressive disorder, substance abuse, pervasive development disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, Tourette's disorder, any eating disorder and bipolar disorder.

To reduce the burden of suffering resulting from children's mental illness, child and youth mental health services are offered throughout British Columbia by the Ministry for Children and Family Development (MCFD). These services provide a wide range of community-based specialized mental health services to mentally ill children and their families.

In this section you will find information on the FRIENDS for Life program and Teen Depression Self Help Tool as well as other programs and resources. You will also find information about our latest initiatives.

Child & Youth Mental Health - Recruitment Campaign For information about our next recruitment campaign, please click here.