Province hunting for web-based system to better assess and help youth with mental-health, addiction issues

As a drug crisis rages in Manitoba, the province is looking for a better web-based mental-health and addictions assessment tool for youth to help connect them to the services they need.

Shared Health said it’s seeking an evidence-based assessment system that focuses on mental health and substance use challenges in youth. On Monday, it posted on the public-sector tendering site MERX that it’s looking for systems and tools that are secure and ready to go.

A spokesperson for Shared Health said the authority is trying to determine whether there are any stronger screening tools and digital platforms than what is currently in use. The Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth has sounded the alarm over substance use among children and youth, and the need for the province to do more and better.

Shared Health currently has a screening tool and digital platform — the Child Behavior Checklist and the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA-Web), the spokesperson said.

The checklist is a questionnaire that provides a broad view of the youth’s behaviour. It assesses whether a child or youth is experiencing internal issues such as anxiety and depression, and if they’re externalizing issues through aggression or hyperactivity, for instance. The checklist doesn’t offer a diagnosis but but can help mental-health professionals identify young people who may be experiencing social or behavioural challenges.

Now Shared Health is looking for a web-based mental-health and addictions screening tool and digital platform that is “potentially stronger” and can meet current and future system needs, the spokesperson said in an email.

The information submitted through the tool would help intake workers better understand mental-health and addictions concerns and match young people to the most appropriate services.

The Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth has long called for changes to the province’s youth addiction system.

The latest MACY annual report said substance use and substance-related harms among children and youth have become a priority public health and children’s rights issue in Manitoba.

“The province’s current youth addiction system is ill-equipped to meet the complex and co-occurring needs of many young people and is fraught with persistent and long-standing gaps and barriers to available and accessible services,” advocate Sherry Gott said in the report.

“These are significant and interrelated problems that expose a rift between commitment and action, and ultimately signal an urgent need for larger systemic change if we are serious about fulfilling the promise of children’s rights.”

On Wednesday, Gott responded to questions about Shared Health looking for a better web-based mental-health and addictions assessment tool for youth.

“Certainly any tool that can help young people in Manitoba would be welcome,” she said in an email.

“We continue to ask the government to develop a robust mental-health and addictions strategy which is multi-faceted, and take into consideration all the factors which impact children, youth, and young adults across the province.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca