At a glance
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Youth Mental Health Symposium: The annual event drew a standing-room-only crowd to discuss youth mental health.
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Foundation co-founder Jane Panton shared an emotional tribute to her son Alex, urging parents and communities to listen with compassion and recognise signs of anxiety and depression.
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Community and government response: Leaders highlighted progress in awareness, policy development and plans for expanded adolescent mental health services.
The tears came early, but there was hope within the pain. Amid the anguish of a mother talking about the suicide of her teenage son was a message of lessons learned and saving others from disconnection, despair and heartbreak.
The ninth annual Youth Mental Health Symposium, organised by the Alex Panton Foundation, was held at Hotel Indigo Grand Cayman on 21 Feb. under the theme, ‘Lighting the Way: turning hope into action.’
This year’s event had a record number of attendees in the Hotel Indigo ballroom, where the standing-room-only audience listened as speakers including health professionals, teachers, counsellors and psychiatrists addressed mental health among young people.
Supporting young people
While all the sessions were unique, the common theme was helping the community navigate towards a greater understanding of youth mental health and how to connect with those affected.
The Alex Panton Foundation was founded in 2018 by Jane and Wayne Panton after the death by suicide of their son Alex, 16, to help give parents and peers a better understanding of the impact anxiety and depression have on young people. Through its initiatives, including the Addison Kelly Memorial Scholarship, KidsHelpline and its Emotional Literacy Program, the foundation has helped support children and young adults struggling with mental illness.
Jane Panton herself took to the stage to tell of her “precious, intelligent, vivacious son, Alex, who took his own life on Oct. 30, 2010, age of 16”.
In the depths of grief, she said, “We knew we wanted his life to count for something; that somehow out of this unimaginable loss, there had to be light for others.”
In a courageous and moving speech, Panton told of her son’s struggle with anxiety from an early age and her feelings of regret and sadness that she might have missed opportunities to connect with Alex in a way which could have made a difference.
“Looking back, the signs were there, but we did not know how to read them,” she said. “We were parenting with tools society had given us. But if I had been more curious instead of corrective or dismissive, I might have asked different questions.”
Dealing with mental health
“Like many parents, we parented Alex the way we were parented,” she said. “We disciplined him the way we were disciplined. That was what we knew. It took me years to realise that we did not fail as parents. We had no knowledge of mental illness or its symptoms. We did not have the tools to help him cope in the way he needed from early on in his life which may have changed the direction of his path. We did not know the seriousness of where his anxiety would lead him until the year before his death when Alex sought professional help.”
While adults have a perspective from years of experience, she said, “Our teens are forming theirs and the weight of the world can feel absolute and overwhelming.”
She said that parents could do much to help young people today.
“Educate yourself about what is trending in your child’s world,” she said. “How are our judgments shaping the inner world of our children? Revisit your old perceptions that carry unintended judgment. Educate yourself about anxiety and depression … and at the same time, give yourself grace. Many of us are not raised with these conversations – we are learning in real time.”
Governor Jane Owen said in her opening remarks that she welcomed hope and action being themes of the event.
She said that progress was being made in education, in training and in recognising and responding to mental health issues, “so when you look around, there are really good reasons to hope”.
She added, “We’re going to hear a lot from our experts today about how we can access all of the new ideas out there, but at the end of the day, quite a lot of it is about understanding and kindness and what we all do, whether we’re educators, whether we’re in a business environment – how do we respond to it.”
Minister for Health, Environment and Sustainability Katherine Ebanks-Wilks said the huge turnout was a sign of the legacy left by Alex, the Panton family and of the importance of this issue, “because the truth is, we cannot light the way forward if we refuse to see the darkness in some of our young people and what they are walking through”.
Data from the Alex Panton Foundation, she said, “tells us something that we cannot ignore”, which is that around 12.5% of high school students in Cayman have received a mental health diagnosis, with twice as many girls as boys saying they are unhappy with themselves.
“Behind every percentage is a child; behind every statistic there is a story a young person sitting in a classroom, a teenager scrolling silently at night, a child smiling on the outside, but struggling within,” she said.
“It can be uncomfortable to talk about suicide and mental health, but if we are serious about lighting the way, then we must be willing to look directly at the realities that our young people are facing. Sometimes we think we need the perfect words, but often what a young person needs most is not advice. It’s our presence.”
Mental health campaign
She said the government is advancing a National Mental Health Policy and developing a national campaign focused on recognising the signs of suicide risk. Government has approved funding for a dedicated mental health adolescent ward at the Anthony S Eden hospital to provide age appropriate, gender segregated engagement care when it is needed.
She told the audience, “While you may not consider yourself to be in a position of power or influence, you are, whether you’re a parent, a teacher, a friend, a mentor, a colleague, a neighbor, you are an individual who carries the light.
“Being here today certainly isn’t easy, but it’s your heart that begins your journey, and the light of your loved one will continue to shine through you and it will help someone who is lost to find their way.”
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