Victoria – In a new report, the Representative for Children and Youth is urging the provincial government to modernize the Mental Health Act and ensure that it addresses the unique needs and circumstances of children and youth living with mental health challenges. The report, Putting Children at the Centre: Reforming and Modernizing the Mental Health Act for Children and Youth, accompanies the release of three studies that the Representative commissioned from the Society for Children and Youth of BC.
“Young people in this province are facing mounting mental health pressures with so many causes – whether it be the profound impacts of the toxic drug crisis, compounding intergenerational trauma, online harms or the uncertainty that comes with living in an ever more complex world, many of our young people are hurting,” said the Representative, Dr. Jennifer Charlesworth noting that evidence estimates that at any given time in BC, nearly 100,000 children and youth are experiencing a mental health disorder. “We need to do all we can to ensure young people are well set up to manage these challenges and we are failing significantly at doing so.”
Charlesworth notes that currently British Columbia’s Mental Health Act is almost exclusively aimed at adults, only incidentally referencing children and youth. While the current legislation has been subject to much criticism for a lack of procedural safeguards when treating people with mental health disorders, young people have even fewer protections than adults. Charlesworth points out young people require even more safeguards and supports, given their state of development and greater vulnerability. For example, the report notes that there has been an average of nearly 3000 involuntary detentions of young people under the Mental Health Act each year, and that youth are involuntarily detained at fourteen times the rate that they are in the youth justice system. Charlesworth notes that recently released guidance and the potential expansion of the use of involuntary care underscores the need for strengthened legal safeguards that protect the rights and dignity of young people and a robust network of supports young people can access voluntarily.
“Current legislation is woefully inadequate for the challenges we face now. While I recognize the need for involuntary care in specific situations, I am extremely concerned that young people and their families are not being provided with the services they need both before and after this extreme measure. Government’s assertion that services are standing at the ready is simply not true.”
The RCY first called for the development of a child and youth mental health and substance use plan to enhance the array of voluntary services and supports in 2018. While some community-based services have been developed since this time, including Foundry Centres and Integrated Child and Youth teams in some locations, Charlesworth has serious concerns about the obvious inadequacies of the current system of services. For example, on December 31, 2024, there were 1771 children on the wait-list for Child and Youth Mental Health services across the province, with an average wait time of more than four months. Importantly, there is a near absence of intensive “step up/step down” community-based treatment services to support transition from hospital to community.
Premier David Eby committed to reforming the Mental Health Act in the wake of the Lapu-Lapu tragedy in April 2025. Charlesworth is pushing government to completely overhaul the Act with either a stand-alone Child and Youth Mental Health Act or a separate and distinct part of a modernized Act that addresses the rights, unique needs and circumstances of children and youth, including for example:
- recognition of the rights of children and youth to align with international human rights instruments, including their right to participate in decisions affecting them and to be heard
- recognition of the specific needs of Indigenous children and youth and a robust consultation process to ensure these needs are fully met
- enhanced procedural safeguards for young people in recognition of their state of development and greater vulnerability
- establishing legal criteria for involuntary detention that are no less stringent than the criteria for adults and include provisions that care should be as least intrusive as possible for the shortest duration necessary and should only be considered after all available alternatives have been considered
- include an embedded framework outlining the role and importance of community-based services, mental health promotion, prevention, early intervention, cross-ministry collaboration and communication.
“We look forward to government fulfilling its commitment to modernizing this important legislation,” said Charlesworth. “We hope this report and its accompanying research helps ensure new mental health legislation puts children at the centre.”
To view the report visit: https://rcybc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/MentalHealthReform_RCYBC_2025_Print2.pdf
