DETAILS
Understanding and Managing the Social, Emotional and Traumatic Impacts of a Worldwide Pandemic: Factors for Response and Post-Pandemic Recovery — a presentation for parents and stakeholders in our community supporting our youth
J. Kevin Cameron, executive director of the North American Center for Threat Assessment and Trauma Response
Hosted by the St. Albert Youth Mental Health Hub Initiative
Sponsored by the Rotary Club of St. Albert and the St. Albert Family Resource Centre
7 p.m. on Thursday, March 17, 2022
Arden Theatre
This event is free, but tickets are required. Visit tickets.stalbert.ca to reserve your seat.
The pandemic wrought more damage than the widespread ill health throughout the population along with millions of deaths worldwide. There have been separations of families, friends, and co-workers topped off with massive social upheaval and civil unrest that has certainly affected everyone to some degree.
Managing that is tough; managing how your children deal with it is even tougher. The St. Albert Youth Mental Health Hub Initiative is hosting a speaker at the Arden on March 17 to help offer the public a deeper insight and potential coping mechanisms to get through these tumultuous times.
J. Kevin Cameron, executive director of the North American Center for Threat Assessment and Trauma Response, said he hopes to offer some deeper insights and potential coping mechanisms to the audience. He works in three distinct but connected areas: violence risk assessment, trauma response, and as a trained family therapist. He’ll speak from all three of those converging perspectives.
“The term that I use quite a bit is perspective-making: understanding what's happened to us during the pandemic, not that everybody is traumatized, heaven forbid. That’d make half the people think, ‘I'm not going because it's ridiculous, because we're not all traumatized.’ We're not, but there has been chronic stress without a doubt that most adults and kids have experienced, some without even realizing it,” he began.
Without taking a position into the pros and cons of health mandates, he will dive into the immediate and lingering psychological effects of quarantining. Being disconnected from others who are important to us for any period of time does take a toll. For an individual, especially a youth, to try and overcome that hardship without proper guidance can lead to further problems.
Cameron offered the example of kids who try to find some way to be connected, and who have learned the hard way about dangers on the Internet.
“In Canada in the first year of the pandemic, we had a dramatic 80-per-cent increase in online sexual exploitation of children and youth, for instance — the realization that some kids may have gotten in over their heads, and how do we as parents and caregivers learn to really reconnect with them, and be open that we can actually handle the truth of what maybe they've gone through.”
The core of his presentation will focus on insights into the mental-health needs that have evolved throughout the pandemic, along with society’s growing understanding of better ways to assess the needs of our youths and how to intervene appropriately.
There has been a steep learning curve for many parents and caregivers to overcome.
“We just need to settle this thing down because we're causing more harm to some kids by putting the pressure on unnecessarily. I'm going to talk about polarization also and the implication that that has for kids and for adults. There are more reasonable ways, if you will, to actually see differences,” he continued.
One central message that he has offered in terms of polarization to other audiences across the continent is “do not ruin long-term relationships over a short-term conflict.”
“What that actually means is, listen, all of us have different opinions and perspectives. It's a friggin' pandemic. It's going to come to an end. In the end, do not ruin long-term relationships over short-term conflicts and differences of opinion. It's going to be perspective making."
