Warning: this article discusses suicide and self-harm.
St. Albert’s LGBTQ youth have been swept up in a post-COVID mental health crisis — one a local academic says won’t be stopped without action from local leaders.
Representatives from Outloud spoke to St. Albert city council April 18 about a youth suicide crisis unfolding in St. Albert.
Community outreach worker Bekah Marcellus said Outloud was seeing significant demand for its services in area 2SLGBTQ+ (two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, or questioning) youths, with an average of 60 kids attending its group night meetings in recent months. About half of those youths exhibited high-risk behaviours such as suicidal thoughts or self-harm. Over a dozen had attempted suicide in the last 12 months.
“Currently St. Albert is facing a youth suicide crisis and we aren’t the only ones noticing,” Marcellus said, noting they had also discussed the issue with St. Albert’s public and Catholic school boards.
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COVID backlog
Outloud co-founder Terry Soetaert said St. Albert’s 2SLGBTQ+ youth mental health crisis was due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, which cut many youths off from support groups and peers and isolated them at home.
“With a lot of our kids, (home) was not the best, not the most supportive space,” he said, especially in homes where the parents didn’t support their child’s gender or sexual identity.
Soetaert said groups like Outloud were seeing a surge in youths seeking support now that most pandemic restrictions have lifted.
St. Albert’s situation is part of a global post-pandemic youth mental health crisis which has disproportionately affected the 2SLGBTQ+ community, said Kristopher Wells, the Canada Research Chair in public understanding of sexual and gender minority youth at MacEwan University.
An August 2022 survey by the Mental Health Commission of Canada found that about 23 per cent of 2SLGBTQ+ youths reported themselves to be in excellent or very good mental health as of September 2021, compared to 43 per cent of other youths. 2SLGBTQ+ youths were three times more likely to have contemplated suicide since the start of the pandemic compared to other youths.
Wells said the pandemic cut 2SLGBTQ+ youths off from supports such as gay-straight alliances and gender-affirming health care and isolated them with often unsupportive families. Recent threats of violence against Edmonton’s Pride Corner and protesters at drag story-time events in Calgary have also made 2SLGBTQ+ youths feel under attack.
While Outloud can help youths hook up with mental health specialists, Soetaert said it often takes six months to a year to get an appointment — far too long a wait to make a difference.
“We need to be able to tackle the issues these kids are going through right now,” he said, as many may be within weeks of attempting suicide or self-harm.
Wells said the Edmonton region needs targeted support for these youths and their parents. Outloud is a start, but what would really help is a specialized 2SLGBTQ+ health clinic similar to The 519 in Toronto (which offers a long list of services to the 2SLGBTQ+ community).
“The most important thing parents can do is to tell your kids you love them and you accept them unconditionally,” Wells said.
Beyond that, Wells said parents can become advocates for 2SLGBTQ+ youths by backing Pride celebrations and demanding local leaders to create inclusive and equitable mental health care.
“We need parents to get loud, we need them to get angry, and we need them to get vocal.”
If you need mental health support, please call Kids Help Phone at 1-800-668-6868 or the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Edmonton Distress Line at 780-482-4357.
