Acknowledgements: The Health of Canada's Young People: a mental health focus

Acknowledgements

This report presents findings from the sixth cycle of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey in Canada. We would like to acknowledge the collaborative efforts of the 43 participating research teams from Europe and North America and the ongoing support of the International Coordinating Centre in Scotland as well as the International Databank Coordinating Centre in Norway.

The administration of the HBSC survey and the presentation of findings in this report were made possible by funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada's Division of Childhood and Adolescence Strategic Policy and Research Section. Special appreciation is given to Patricia Walsh, Manager; Michael Torunian, Policy Analyst; and Louise Aubrey, Team Leader, along with Mary Johnston, Andrea Botto, Megan Rooney, and Heather Caughey for providing invaluable input throughout the planning of the study and the writing of the report.

Additional financial support and invaluable contributions to the development of the questionnaires and the writing of the report were provided by the Office of Research and Surveillance, Controlled Substances and Tobacco Directorate of Health Canada. Special appreciation is given to Managers Judy Snider and Robert Hansen and research analysts Jillian Flight and Manon Mireault.

The Joint Consortium for School Health (JCSH) collaborated with the HBSC team to make the expansion of the sample possible and to identify priority issues in the development of the survey instruments and for reporting. JCSH members provided active support in the data collection phase of the study. There are too many JCSH contributors to mention, however, leadership in our collaboration was provided by Executive Director Katherine Kelly; former Executive Director Claire Avison, and Kim Weatherby, former Manager, Partnerships and Initiatives.

We would like to acknowledge Stoney McCart, and her staff from The Students Commission, lead of the Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement, for their work in putting the workshop together to elicit young people's input on the findings and for their additional work in collecting the views of young people. We would also like to thank the wonderful group of young people who came together to so candidly share with us their thoughts and experiences and their perspectives on the HBSC findings.

The Social Program Evaluation Group, Queen's University, was responsible for collecting and analyzing the data under the supervision and organization of Matthew King. Sandy Youmans, Elizabeth Penn, Lindsay Heggie, King Luu, and Melanie Birencwaig were responsible for contacting participating schools and school jurisdictions and coordinating the administration of the survey.

Data entry, coding, questionnaire handling and the related tracking and documentation were carried out by Rachel Shijing Wei, Sarah Jin Yu, Debby Ying-yu Tsai, Patricia Miragliotta, Youyi Sun, Sarah Yun, Chantel Lutchman, Carmen Huang, Claudia D'Alessandro, Kathleen Gropp, and Rashed Al-Haque.

Diane Yocum provided endless patience preparing and editing figures and the texts of the chapters as well as carrying out and overseeing the administrative tasks required in collecting the data.

Patricia Sculthorpe edited the manuscript while Marie Tappin designed and laid out the report and assisted the editorial team with picture research. Delta Printing was responsible for the production of the report. Monique Paradis, Jean-Pierre Doyon, and Denis Hébert were responsible for translating the English version of the report into French.

Last but not least, we wish to thank all the students who were willing to share their experiences with us, as well as the school principals, teachers, school boards, and parents, for making this survey happen.