Webinars

Description: 

This webinar focuses on the co-design of Youth MindTrack: an interactive digital tool to enhance youth mental health literacy among youth aged 11-18 years. We will describe the methodology or this work, alongside presentation of the evidence-based consensus statements that underpinned Youth MindTrack’s development.  

Many adult-type mental health disorders develop early in life and typically demonstrate a course characterized by chronicity and numerous periods of relapse. However, this trajectory is modifiable through early intervention as youth often reveal a need for mental health care prior to reaching the threshold for a traditional psychiatric diagnosis. Early and effective management of mental health disorders duringthis critical developmental period may help to reduce extensive morbidities and adverse outcomes associated with mental health disorders (e.g., social isolation, decreased vocational and educational productivity, poor functioning).Yet, youth are significantly less likely than any other age group to access mental health supports and services for varied reasons (e.g., comparatively lower mental health literacy, stigma among family or friends, inaccessible health system structures, or inadequate or inappropriate resources).  

The Youth MindTrack was co-created with youth and in partnership with to youth healthcare organizations to leverage recent advances in information communication technologies and provide youth with knowledge (of how and when mental health disorders develop). This knowledge is essential to their ability to appraise their need for help and to engage in help-seeking behaviours. Of note, perceived lack of knowledge about mental health challenges and disorders is one of the most pervasive barriers to help-seeking behaviours among youth. Thus, enhancing mental health literacy is one promising approach to promote help-seeking behaviours to combat excessively high rates of undertreatment of mental disorders among youth. 

1. Engaged, as informed stewards of youth mental health literacy. 
2. Educated, on the importance of youth mental health literacy including accessible exercises to build it. 
3. Empowered, to move forward supporting increased and widespread youth mental health literacy. 

Speakers:

• Sonia Siddiqui 
  Research Associate 
  Dalhousie University 
  • Sonia Siddiqui is a health services researcher at the Applied Health Research & KnowledgeMobilization Lab, working under the mentorship of distinguished researchers Dr. Jeanna ParsonsLeigh and Dr. Stephana Julia Moss. She holds a Master of Health Administration from DalhousieUniversity and a Bachelor of Science in Cognitive Science from Mount Allison University.Sonia's passions and research interests include patient safety and community-engagedresearch, with a strong commitment to advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) withinthe healthcare system. She focuses on improving health outcomes for equity-deserving groups,with a particular emphasis on youth and children. Sonia aims to create meaningful and lasting impacts in these communities, ensuring that all individuals have access to high-quality healthcare and support. 
• Cynthia Sriskandarajah 
  Research in Medicine Student 
  Dalhousie University 
  • Cynthia is a second-year medical student at Dalhousie University. She graduated withanHonours Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and a Master of Public Health from the University ofWestern Ontario. Cynthia has worked at the CIHR-IHDYCH and later at the Applied Health andKnowledge Translation Lab under the supervision of esteemed researchers Jeanna ParsonsLeigh and Stephana Julia Moss. Her experiences in research and policy have inspired her tobecome an academic physician, with the goal of improving patient care and well-being,especially among children and youth. 
• Maia Stelfox 
  Youth Research Assistant 
  Dalhousie University 
  • Maia Stelfox is a research assistant in the School of Health Administration, Faculty of Health, atthe University Dalhousie under Dr. Parsons Leigh and Dr. Moss. She is currentlycompleting herundergraduate degree in the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. 
• Dr. Stephana Julia Moss 
  Assistant Professor and Chair in Community-based Research and Health Equity 
  Dalhousie University 
  • Stephana holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Calgary and is currently an Assistant Professor and Research Chair in Community-Based Research and Health Equity at Dalhousie University. Her research program focuses broadly on advancing health, health care, and health equity, through community engagement. As an Epidemiologist, she is focused on improving care for incapacitated patients and equity-deserving populations, with extensive experience among patients hospitalized or recently discharged from the ICU, as well as children and adolescents who have recently immigrated to Canada. Improving the translation and facilitating the implementation of scientific evidence on socio-cultural determinants of health equity in high-quality health practice and clinical care is a cross-cutting theme that runs throughout her various research projects.