Teenager Lexi Daken's death pushes new child and youth advocate

One year after teenager Lexi Daken took her own life, the province's newly appointed child and youth advocate says changes need to happen in the mental health care system in the next six months. 

Kelly Lamrock, a former Liberal MLA and cabinet minister, said the report released on the 16-year-old Fredericton girl's death is helping to guide his decisions as the new advocate. 

"It's without a doubt one of the most comprehensive reports that the child and youth advocate's office has released in a number of years," Lamrock told Information Morning Fredericton. 

"As a parent myself, it was one of the first things that I reviewed getting ready to take on this role."  

Norm Bossé, the former child and youth advocate, said in the report released in September that Lexi's death was preventable. 

The report, titled The Best We Have to Offer, outlined 12 recommendations to better the province's mental health care system, including mental health training for health-care workers. 

Lamrock said his office will update the province with recommendations for mental health services every six months beginning in March. 

"I'm well aware that we're not, for instance, going to see 25 psychologists fall from the sky because our office released a report," he said. 

"But, there are some things my office will expect to see in the six-month interval, and we'll be sounding alarm bells if they aren't."

Lamrock said he would like to see funding for peer-network group the Link.  

The mental health support project based in Ontario trains youth to recognize signs of mental illness and help those struggling find resources. 

Lamrock said young people aren't likely to seek help when they're dealing with mental illness, especially when isolated from peers through online learning.

Having people within a teen's inner circle who can guide struggling youth to support would be beneficial. 

Lamrock said that cost would be between $40,000 and $50,000. 

He said the province needs to speed up assessment times for mental health services, by adding more clinical psychologists and providing health-care workers with mental health training. 

"We are at a critical low point for assessments of mental health and it's not getting better," said Lamrock. 

He said the University of New Brunswick had over 100 applicants with master's degrees and an above-average GPA for its clinical psychology doctoral program, but only made four offers. 

"There's got to be a discussion between health institutions and the colleges," Lamrock said. 

"We're not going to correct this current shortage where families are desperately waiting for mental health services, unless there is a proper plan." 

While there haven't been significant changes to the health-care system since Lexi died a year ago, Lamrock said there are signs the province intends to make changes. 

Lexi's father, Chris Daken, said he was pleased by what Lamrock had to say about changes that need to be made in   mental health services.

"It's nice to know they're going to do a followup to make sure the government is aware of the situation," he said. 

Daken said six months seems a reasonable timeline to start seeing change in the system. 

"It would be nice if we could wave a magic wand and everything would be changed, but I know with the government there are a lot of processes they need to go through." 

Daken said the province could have moved faster to make changes in the past year. 

He wants the goverment to put more money into mental health services.

"They've said, 'Here's what we're going to do,' but we haven't really seen it in action yet," said Daken.

"A lot of that is going to be financially dependent."