The Sandbox Youth Mental Health Project aims to test a comprehensive set of electronic tools for managing mental illness. More specifically, the tools aim to improve care in a number of ways, including: facilitating self-management and enriching communication with healthcare providers, family and friends, improving the quality of consumer-practitioner interactions and increasing provider productivity.
The Sandbox Project was created to respond to startling research conducted on behalf of the Government of Canada by Dr. Kellie Leitch in 2007/2008. After an exhaustive research period which took Dr. Leitch to all provinces and territories, she discovered that Canada was slipping further behind its peer countries when it came to key health indicators for children and youth. Regretfully, this means that for the first time in history, the current generation of children will have a shorter life-span than their parents (NEJM 2005.) These figures are clearly unacceptable. Ensuring the health and wellness of our children is more than simply the right thing to do; it is critically important for our long-term well-being as a country.
The vision of the Sandbox Project is to help make Canada the healthiest place on earth for children and youth to grow up. Its ambitious but achievable goal is to make measurable progress against international health indicators within the next five years. In particular, it is focused on improving health outcomes with respect to injury prevention, obesity, mental health, and the environment. This is no small task; however, there is no more important challenge than to improve the health of children and youth through evidenced-based public policy.
The Sandbox Project’s organization is designed to pursue these important objectives in a collaborative manner with stakeholders who can help improve the lives of children and youth. Canada’s corporate community has also made significant commitments to this endeavour. The project is very pleased to have a wide variety of child and youth health related organizations by its side.
The Graham Boeckh Foundation is no longer actively involved in the Sandbox Project.