Young people's mental health

Bailee lives in Smithers, in northwest BC, and is in Grade 9. In high school, she started to get into drugs. A lot of families can’t afford activities like dance or sports, so drugs and alcohol are a way to have fun. Bailee has been in and out of foster care since she was four, and her worker at the Ministry of Children and Family Development is a great support no matter what’s going on. Now Bailee is ready to learn how to deal with everything she’s experienced and find balance.

Navjot grew up in the Okanagan in a multigenerational Punjabi home with strong ties to India. She felt like she didn’t belong in either world. With little support from others, she started to drink alcohol and attempted suicide a year later. That created a constant tug-of-war between traditional healing and Western health systems, and even more pressure to hide her experiences from others. Navjot felt like she had to stay silent, but she now works to break the stigma and find healing in the space between two cultures.

Arjun felt isolated and bullied, in part due to the stigma of mental health problems in his South Asian community. Through his passion and success in bhangra, he discovered that music and dance are an important opportunity to change the way we think about mental health. Now a dance instructor, he uses his own experiences to help his students find their own well-being.

When Seren had to share a culture as part of her class’ International Day, she picked Ukraine because she was too embarrassed of her own Indigenous culture. Even though she wanted a relationship with her heritage, she and her family also experienced racism. Find out how Seren put the pieces together between her mental well-being and her relationship with Indigenous culture to start a journey of healing.