by Pamela Scott Crace

At this time of year we extend wishes for happiness and good health. We tend to mean our bodies. But what about our minds?

For adolescents, especially, mental illness is frighteningly common. According to Laing House, a Halifax drop-in facility, one in five young Canadians will suffer. And it can lead to tragedy: suicide is the second leading cause of death in young people, and almost all suicide involves mental illness. Only motor vehicle accidents take a bigger toll on our sons and daughters.

I was deeply touched by the story about Barrie and Linda Black and Dani and Hans Himmelman in this issue. These two families generously shared their accounts of coping with a child's mental illness. In the Blacks’ case, their son is now recovered; in the Himmelmans’case, their daughter took her own life four years ago. Both families only hope that talking about their experience will help lift the stigma from mental illness, enabling other parents to avoid the unimaginable.

How can the business community help?

The first step is acknowledging that mental illness is more common than you think. People like the Blacks and the Himmelmans are your employees, your bosses, your colleagues, and your neighbours. Mental illness usually strikes in teenage years or the early 20s, so people with children at those ages are usually in mid-career, at their most productive. This makes employers extremely vulnerable; they need to become advocates for change.

Writer Jan Matthews provides a useful primer for workplaces on page 51. In it, well-known Halifax psychiatrist Dr. Stanley Kutcher even provides his phone number: call him for advice on how to make your workplace more supportive of kids and parents in crisis.

Moreover, workplace mental health and addiction issues are estimated to cost the economy more than $30 billion a year. That’s $100 million every working day. It’s time for companies to be more proactive about including the mind in health and wellness policies.

Atlantic Canada has a great opportunity to make progress on this issue. After all, it’s mainly our brain that we apply to work every day. And going in to 2009, I think we’re going to need to focus even harder.