Ron Corbett
The Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Susan Hess figures the age at which her daughter first started exhibiting truly
“Inappropriate” behaviour was seven.
By inappropriate she means swearing Throwing chairs. Breaking windows at her school -- from inside the classroom.
By the time Leah Hess was 12 she was holding knives to her mother’s throat. Staying up until four in the morning, pacing in her bedroom. She said she heard voices telling her to kill people, her mother among them.
The teachers at her school said the child had “behaviour problems.” Her mother said no, that doesn’t begin to cover it.
“Leah did not have behaviour problems. Her behaviour was a symptom of something that was eating her up inside, something that made her act out like that,” remembers Ms. Hess. “I told everyone she needed to get proper mental health care, and no one wanted to believe it, or do anything about it.”
Ms. Hess, a single mother of five, says she has been fighting for better mental health care for her daughter ever since that “behavioural problem” diagnosis 10 years ago. The president of Parents for Children’s Mental Health will be in Ottawa today as part of a provincial tour the agency is conducting, with a quilt that has been made in honour of families that have waged similar battles across the province.
Some of the nine families represented on the quilt have battled and won. Others have not. Four of the nine names on the quilt are of teenagers and young men who committed suicide.
“Studies show one in 10 children in Ontario has seriously considered suicide in the past,” says Ms. Hess. “There are 150,000 children accessing mental health care in Ontario right now. There is a waiting list of 12,000 children, who cannot get any services.
“And the numbers are going up in a shocking fashion. The waiting lists. The suicide rate. The number of eating disorders being reported. The stresses our children are under today are incredible, and they are starting to take their toll”
Ottawa will be the fourth stop in Ontario for the Quilt of Honour, and it coincides with the annual general meeting of the Roberts/Smart Centre, a residential-treatment centre in Ottawa for children with mental health problems.
It was a similar treatment centre in Windsor that Ms. Hess says turned her daughter’s life around. The Maryvale Centre accepted Leah Hess at the age of 14 into what is called their “8 to 8” program. The teenager was dropped off at eight in the morning, and picked up at eight that night, five days a week. She attended school at one of the cottages on the Maryvaie property, and attended special counselling sessions before and after school.
She was quickly diagnosed with deep-seated depression (likely since the day she was born) and “free-floating” anxiety She started taking anti-depressants, and her mother says the change was dramatic and immediate.
With the proper diagnosis, and the right treatment and medication, Leah Hess flourished at l4aryvale. She spent four years at the centre arid graduated with a high school diploma four years ago.
Today, she works part4ime at a respite centre for physically challenged children. She also volunteers three times a week at a seniors’ centre. The change in the young woman who first considered suicide at the age of five, and wanted to kill her mother by the time she turned 12, has indeed been remarkable.
Last year Leah Hess received the Lieutenant Governor’s Volunteer of the Year Award for her work around Windsor. Windsor gave her a similar award, as did the Kiwanis Club.
The young girl who once asked her mother after a particularly bad day at school if she was “really as bad as everyone says I am,” Is now a valued member of her community.
The Quilt of Honour will be on display this afternoon at the Embassy West Hotel, starting at 4:30 p.m.
© Copyright 2003 The Ottawa Citizen