A pioneering project will enhance Canada’s overall understanding of youth mental health needs and advance new assessment and treatment approaches

Each year, one out of every four youth in Canada needs mental health services. Developed by a team of specialized researchers from across Canada, the Canadian Youth Mental Health Insight Platform (CYMHI) is an interactive web portal that hopes to address this urgent need, bringing together youth, family members, researchers, clinicians, organizations with diverse mental health specializations, service providers and policy makers to improve youth mental health care in Canada. The platform uses open data, machine learning, AI, and other methods to improve communication between its users, enhance Canada’s overall understanding of youth mental health needs, and advance new assessment and treatment approaches.

“It is about bringing everyone together to share and exchange what we are living, and learning,” says Steve Mathias, CYMHI leadership team member and Executive Director at Providence Health Care and leader of Foundry, a British Columbia network of centres that offer young people health and wellness resources, services and supports both in person and virtually.

“It is about bringing everyone together
to share and exchange what we are living, and learning”
– Steve Mathias, CYMHI leadership team member

Young people between the ages of 15 and 29 are the most impacted by mental illness worldwide. It accounts for approximately half of the overall burden of disease in this age group, making it the leading cause of disability in Canada. Therefore, it is crucial for this demographic to have access to innovative resources to not only help tend to their mental health concerns, but also to provide them with ongoing support when needed.

“The CYMHI is a fantastic development to empower youth and youth-involved initiatives to take ownership in paving the way for future mental health service implementation,” says Suchayte Bali, Youth Engagement Coordinator at Foundry. “At a grassroots level, this can allow for many youth-led not-for-profit organizations to garner an understanding for which supports are needed in their communities, now backed by machine learning data from across Canada.”

“Through our partnership with Brain Canada,
we’re focused on increasing and accelerating access to
services for youth who are facing mental health concerns,
while facilitating digital solutions for practitioners and researchers.”
– Mark Beckles, Vice-President, Social Impact and Innovation, RBC

Thanks to a $5.13-million grant, awarded through the Brain Canada Youth Mental Health Platform program, powered by RBC Future Launch, with support from Power Corporation of Canada, this newly created platform is allowing researchers to explore new data and find answers to questions they were previously unable to answer. By providing an interactive web portal, youth, family members, clinicians, service providers, researchers, and policy makers can access shared data, analytics, and AI tools for optimizing mental health care. The portal will also enable users to find data and connect insights from community and school prevention programs, youth mental health services, and clinical research studies.

“Through this project, we are providing a state-of-the-art informatics platform that serves as a foundation to improve mental health for, and importantly, with youth across the country,” notes Dr. Sean Hill, Principal Investigator of CYMHI, Director of the Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics, and Senior Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). “It will facilitate high impact research and the development of youth mental health approaches that would otherwise not be possible.”

“It’s important to us that youth across Canada have the best opportunities to thrive and reach their fullest potential,” says Mark Beckles, Vice-President, Social Impact and Innovation, RBC. “Through our partnership with Brain Canada, we’re focused on increasing and accelerating access to services for youth who are facing mental health concerns, while facilitating digital solutions for practitioners and researchers.”

“More than ever, brain research is critical in helping us, as a community, recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigate its effects on the brain and our mental health,” says Dr. Viviane Poupon, Brain Canada President, and CEO. “We must invest in projects like these that will lead to concrete impacts on brain health for youth in Canada.”

“Through this project, we are providing
a state-of-the-art informatics platform that serves
as a foundation to improve mental health for, and importantly,
with youth across the country…”
– Sean Hill, Principal Investigator of CYMHI

“Eventually, what we hope to do, is support young people and their families earlier to ensure that they are able to prosper, find purpose in their life and live a good life,” states Mathias.

This program was made possible thanks to a $2M gift from the RBC Foundation, in support of RBC Future Launch. Power Corporation of Canada joined in partnership with a $1M gift. Funds were matched through the Canada Brain Research Fund (CBRF), an innovative arrangement between Brain Canada Foundation and the Government of Canada, through Health Canada.

To learn more about RBC Future Launch and resources around mental well-being, please visit: https://www.rbc.com/dms/enterprise/futurelaunch/