suicides of Daron Richardson, 14, Holly Jacklin, 15, Carly Elliott 20, Michaela Mundy 15

Coroner slams mental health service after suicide of Adelaide teenager Michaela Mundy
Coroner told teen suicide victim Michaela Mundy had waited more ...

Coroner told teen suicide victim Michaela Mundy had waited more than a year to see a psychiatrist - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
A coroner has been told a teenager with depression who killed herself had been on a waiting list to see a psychiatrist for more than a year.

Michaela Jayne Mundy, 15, died at her home in July last year.

She took her life while her mother and stepfather were out shopping.
An inquest in Adelaide has been told Miss Mundy's mother saw signs of depression in 2010, when the girl was lethargic and had lost her appetite.

In June 2011, the Seymour College student was put on a waiting list to see a psychiatrist after having her mental health assessed as at low to moderate risk by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

Counsel Assisting the Coroner, Naomi Kereru, told the court the teenager was removed from boarding at the school after just a week because she had cut herself during a weekend visit to her mother's house.

Miss Mundy was assessed by a GP who then recommended a psychotherapist.

That practitioner had retired, so the girl's mother found another doctor, Dr Jason Garrood, via the Beyond Blue website.
Mistaken assumption

Ms Kereru told the inquest Dr Garrood formed a mistaken impression the teenager already had seen a psychiatrist and prescribed the girl a common antidepressant.

The hearing was told Miss Mundy's dosage was halved after she fainted.

But days before her death, the teenager saw Dr Garrood and asked that the dosage be increased because the drugs had not been to blame for her fainting.

Ms Kereru said Miss Mundy had spoken of suicidal thoughts but Dr Garrood was reassured by her request for an increased dosage, taking it as a sign the girl had plans for the future.

He had planned to reassess her.

The inquest was told an expert psychiatrist would give evidence Miss Mundy's dosage of antidepressants should never been halved, that she should have been better assessed and possibly sent to hospital after she expressed suicidal thoughts and that the teenager's depression required the intervention of a psychiatrist, which never happened.

Coroner Mark Johns is expected to hear evidence from staff of Seymour College, Dr Garrood and other practitioners who had contact with Miss Mundy, as well as the director of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

Holly Jacklin
JACKLIN, Holly - Jan 31, 2000 - Feb. 4, 2015. Only daughter of Barb Jacklin and everything in her whole world, the true love of her life.

Barrie mom targets gaps in mental health support for teens
Effort aims to boost services
Barrie mom targets gaps in mental health support for teens

Holly Jacklin, 15, took her own life last month. Her mom, Barbara, wants to ensure youth who need help receive it.
 

Barbara Jacklin wants to ensure no other parent has to live with the grief she is experiencing.
Her 15-year-old daughter, Holly, 15, took her own life Feb. 4 and Barbara is now advocating for teens who feel they have nowhere to turn for help.

“Holly never thought she was pretty or good enough,” she said. “But to me, Holly was very confident and she did things I’d never dream of doing. She made me proud.”

Sports were a big part of Holly’s life. She loved basketball, swimming and baseball. She was captain of her elementary school’s volleyball team and made Central’s girls’ varsity flag football team

....

She had a great personality, a warm smile and bright sparkling blue eyes. Holly was confident, outgoing, giving, and had just the right amount of sass.”

But Holly also hid secrets from those she loved.

“Back in Grade 7, I got a call from the school to say Holly was cutting herself,” Barbara said. “She was self-harming. Did I know about it? No. She wore bracelets and was cutting underneath.”

Shortly after that, Holly ran away, staying with a family member until she patched things up with her mom.

“At that time, I tried to set up counselling (with New Path Youth and Family Services) at the Common Roof,” Barbara said.

Holly was asked if she was self-harming, but Barbara believes every kid who’s asked that question will deny it.

“Then she was told, because she was 13, nothing she said could be told to her parents and if she didn’t want to come for counselling, she didn’t have to.”

Holly was put on a waiting list for help and, 18 months later, she’s still on that list.

“I don’t feel she got any proper help,” Barbara said. “I realize they are super busy there, which is why we need child and youth mental health services. This is happening to kids who are 10, 11, 12 and up.”

Barbara said she won’t ever know why Holly chose to end her life.

But she knows there were struggles.

Holly had difficulty with the transition into Grade 9.

Being unsuccessful in the first round of volleyball tryouts didn’t help.

“That hurt her,” Barbara said.

She also suspects Holly was being bullied because she discovered pages from a journal that say “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will hurt forever” — followed by a list of hateful words Holly had heard.

While Holly’s friends hold a Facebook auction this weekend to help her mom pay funeral costs, Barbara is addressing the gaps in our community.

“I never want another parent to go through this,” she said. “Children are our future and if we don’t have any children left, we’re not going to have a future.

“Children and teens should never be afraid to ask for help. Tell a friend, an adult, parent, teacher or a coach. We must start talking.”

Which is why Barbara said she is sharing her story. “It’s all about the children. I’m trying to make a difference.”

She supports Royal Victoria Regional Hospital’s (RVH’s) Hearts and Minds campaign to bring help for children and youth facing mental health crises.

According to RVH, 70 per cent of mental health problems begin in childhood.

But there are no in-patient health services available to children and youth here.

Kids are either put in an adult psychiatry bed at RVH or sent home with their name on a wait list.

The hospital also says suicide is the second-leading cause of death of youth in Simcoe-Muskoka.

“We are in a huge crisis right now,” New Path Youth and Family Services’ director of services Elizabeth McKeeman said.

In Simcoe County, 31,118 youth will need help with mental illness this year, but only one in five — or 6,200 — will get it, she said.

The rest waiting for help, even those considered a priority, are told to wait.

“Mental health is a quiet killer,” McKeeman said.

Unlike a broken arm or physical illness that people can see and treat, kids don’t often seek help to deal with their inner thoughts.

McKeeman has heard stories similar to Holly’s.

“There’s access to a lot of unhealthy stuff on social media,” she said. “And in high school, you’re supposed to be connecting more with your peers and moving away from mom and dad. It’s an incredibly trying time.”

The key to helping kids is to talk with them — but it has to start when they’re young, McKeeman said.

“Talk to your kid. Know who their friends are. Check out their social media stuff once in awhile. You have to know what’s going on with your child. How are their grades — did their grades change?”

If there are behavioural changes, pay attention, McKeeman said.

“Parents know their kids best and can ask for help if they need help.”

But sometimes parents are facing their own struggles and aren’t a source of support, McKeeman added.

“Parents think they’ve failed and they want us to fix it,” she said.

It’s not a simple fix, rather a group effort between schools, parents and counsellors, she added.

But being on a waiting list doesn’t mean people don’t have other options.

At New Path, teens and parents can meet with a counsellor for a family consultation, she said.

Local high schools also have mental health workers who visit weekly to check in on students.

There’s also a walk-in counselling service through Catholic Family Services, which costs a small fee.

If we had known': Richardsons turn suicide tragedy into community cause

Suicide. It wasn’t until two weeks after Daron died that her parents were able to utter the word.

“We were living it, and we couldn’t say it,” Stephanie Richardson recalls. She and her husband, Ottawa Senators assistant coach Luke Richardson, had detected no sign that their beautiful, outgoing and athletic 14-year-old was depressed, let alone thinking of ending her life.

Her death last November shocked and galvanized the city, bringing together schools, mental-health professionals, scientists and community groups to tackle suicide prevention. The Richardsons launched Do It For Daron (DIFD) to get people talking about the problem.

After one young woman’s visit, the Richardsons began to refer to their campaign simply as DIFD – she was angry that Daron’s death had received so much attention while that of her friend had gone unacknowledged.

“It is not a memorial, it is a cause,” Mrs. Richardson says. “We didn’t want other families to feel their child wasn’t celebrated.”

And yet, she says, Daron was a force – a talented hockey player with close friends on her team and at school. Even her doodles seemed upbeat. The week before she died, a friend taught her to write her name in Chinese characters on a piece of tissue paper her mother found in her backpack. She had added a green tree with branches outstretched, a bright sun and colourful fish leaping out of the ocean. And yet something very different was happening inside.

“It makes me sad for our daughter, to think how scared she must have been,” Mrs. Richardson says.

She and her husband discussed many difficult issues with the girls – sex, drugs, drinking and driving. “But you would never say, ‘If you are feeling funny, be it sad, or feeling off, or struggling with something, if you would ever feel you would harm yourself, we need to talk about this.’ Never. We would have done it, if we had known.”

Mr. Richardson says that talking about such things is hard and suggests that if children don’t embrace the subject at first, try again. “It might be because they are still digesting it.”

Daron's Story

On November 13, 2010, 14-year-old Daron Richardson died by suicide. From this tragedy came a movement to transform youth mental health. Spearheaded by Daron’s parents Luke and Stephanie Richardson, who decided to transform their very private pain into a public call-to-action, a decision was made to support young people who suffer in silence from the pain and stigma of mental illness. Supported by the energy and efforts of dozens of Daron’s close friends and classmates, a grassroots movement was formed with the mission of creating awareness, inspiring conversations, and transforming youth mental health.