Mental Health Issues

Workshop 1: Mental Health Issues
02-July-2023

• Today is the first session of our mental health workshop We have got a great resource from Samantha Wu, who is a psychologist from York university shared her knowledge and research about mental health issues among youth. 

• Our workshop started with some back ground issues on mental health issues. we identified some reasons why people are experiencing mental health issues and what are the barriers for seeking help. Research shows that Asians gets very less help on mental health issues because of stigma and shame.

• We also listed some common mental issues that are existing among youth and acknowledged that  Some of these mental health conditions commonly occur together. For example, among children aged 3-17 years in 2016: Having another mental disorder was most common in children with depression: about 3 in 4 children with depression also had anxiety (73.8%) and almost 1 in 2 had behavior problems (47.2%).For children with anxiety, more than 1 in 3 also had behavior problems (37.9%) and about 1 in 3 also had depression (32.3%).For children with behavior problems, more than 1 in 3 also had anxiety (36.6%) and about 1 in 5 also had depression (20.3%)..

• In addition, our mental health workshop discussed the things we can do to help people over come with mental health issues such as stop judging other people, as well as share empathy to peer who might be struggling mental health issues. 

• Last but not the least, our Q and A time helped many parents who have children with mental health issues received the help they needed and assisted  them found more resources that are useful for them. 

• One parent share her experience where she had a young child had challenges speaking since covid. The presenter offered some resources and shared the speaking therapy community service to the parent to support the parent’s needs.