In late ’80s Huntington Hills, the best place to hang out with my friends after class was the 7-Eleven parking lot adjacent to John G. Diefenbaker High School. A Slurpee- and nicotine-fuelled crucible for hormonal collisions, it seemed to be the only alternative to extracurricular sports and academic clubs for average achievers. Sometimes my friends and I would slouch over to my house nearby to play pool and sip a fruit drink, occasionally with vodka.
Was this a healthy and meaningful path to youthful fulfillment? I don’t really know. Nobody was asking, giving us the impression that we weren’t, at least, on the wrong path. Certainly, now that I’m a mother of teens, I don’t regard loitering or screwdrivers as terrific after-school activities.
On the other hand, sitting alone in your bedroom, on your phone and detached from the physical world and people you know, doesn’t seem like a stellar alternative.
The world is, of course, a vastly different place than it was when I was coming up in northeast Calgary. Unprecedented political, economic and technological upheaval dovetails with evidence that teens across North America are experiencing poorer mental health than other age groups. Youth report higher ratings of anxiety and depression, overall physical distress and suicidal ideation. The University of Calgary’s O’Brien Institute for Public Health reports that 70 per cent of mental illness begins before the age of 18, and impacts across one’s lifespan, reducing educational achievement, employment, income, marriage rates and life expectancy. Here in Alberta, youth are hospitalized for substance-related concerns at a higher rate than the national average.
Calgary psychiatrist Dr. Paul Arnold is the Cuthbertson and Fischer Chair in Pediatric Mental Health at UCalgary’s Cumming School of Medicine, and formerly led UCalgary’s Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research & Education. Arnold says that many researchers describe the cause of these struggles, in part, as stemming from “a growing sense of disconnection.”
Reduced stigma and greater awareness and recognition of psychological health might be part of the reason for the increased prevalence of youth mental health problems. But it’s not the whole story.
“Anxiety and dislocation are macro-trends,” Arnold says. People of all ages, especially youth, he says, “are not feeling connected to one another or to their communities.”
Arnold is currently serving as an advisor to United Way Calgary and Area as it rolls out a novel approach to get ahead of that disconnection. The program is called Planet Youth, and it’s part of a global initiative that uses data gathered directly from young people to improve the social, physical and emotional landscape of the city where they live.
Originally developed in Iceland in the 1990s to address rising alcohol and tobacco use, Planet Youth is a layered response to the forces that shape young people’s lives. Otherwise known as the Icelandic Prevention Model, it eschews traditional prevention methods focused on teaching about the risks of drinking and drugs, such as the “Just Say No” and “This is Your Brain on Drugs” campaigns of the ’80s and ’90s, which are widely regarded as ineffective. Instead, the Planet Youth model investigates and aims to strengthen the main domains of a young person’s life: family relationships, peer groups, school, leisure time and digital environment.
By analyzing and disseminating data gained from surveys and interviews with youth, the initiative’s administrators and researchers guide discussions with parents, teachers, policy-makers and community organizations to forge neighbourhood-specific change. While it’s not a simple initiative that can be distilled into the basic slogans, fried-egg symbolism and fear-based advertisements of the past, Iceland’s youth substance-use rates are now among the lowest in Europe. Experts credit this to the Icelandic Prevention Model’s combination of youth-led, data-driven changes such as improved physical spaces, more heavily subsidized sports and arts programs, and, somewhat controversially, a 10 p.m. curfew for kids aged 13 to 16 (oh, Iceland!).
Monique Blough, director of children and youth strategies at United Way, is not advocating for a curfew on Calgary’s youth. What worked in Iceland, and in the 21 other countries that have since adopted the model, might not work in Calgary — a city with four times Iceland’s population and far more diversity.
In some communities, for instance, the challenges might be recreational — limited access to sports, arts or gathering spaces. In others, it might be social — fewer opportunities to build strong peer connections or mentorship relationships. What’s consistent, however, is the model’s aim to uncover the issues that teens say are most problematic in terms of keeping them from a connected, fun, well-rounded life.
“The model doesn’t prescribe the fix,” says Blough, who recently attended a Planet Youth conference in Iceland “It creates the conditions to find it.
“The core of the model seems simple, but it’s a powerful idea. Young people don’t grow up in isolation. They’re shaped every day by the relationships, supports and opportunities around them. To really understand what’s happening in their lives, we need to look at that full picture: their families, friendships, school experiences and the places where they spend their time.”
Or, put another way, the treatment is building strong, positive relationships between young people and their families, peers, schools and local communities.
Above all, the initiative requires courage and curiosity from participating youth willing to share intimate details: Do you feel safe in your community? How much physical exercise do you get? Do you feel pressure to smoke to fit in with your peers? Are you able to receive caring and warmth from your parents/caregivers?
Since its 2022 adoption by United Way in Calgary, Planet Youth has gathered data from hundreds of young people surveyed at community events and high schools across four pilot neighbourhoods — Forest Lawn, Shawnessy, Saddle Ridge and Thorncliffe/Huntington Hills — chosen for their potential for community partnerships, and socio-economic and demographic stats that pointed to potential need.
Though the initiative is still in its early stages, United Way hopes the kids’ responses and the subsequent evidence-based recommendations from experts like Arnold will give community organizations, parents, teachers and young people themselves a road map.
That might mean more accessible evening programs, stronger school-community partnerships and initiatives that bring families into closer connection with one another. It could also mean rethinking how transportation affects access and how public spaces are used.
For instance, in Shawnessy last year, youth leaders organized the first of a planned series of free movie nights (starting with Ghostbusters: Afterlife) at the community centre; in 2024, Youth Elders (a collective of young leaders working with Planet Youth to uplift the Indigenous community) participated in a Pipe Ceremony hosted by Planet Youth at Grey Eagle Casino; and, in Thorncliffe/Huntington Hills, an all-girls sports day took over the fields at John G. Diefenbaker High School. It’s a solid start to imagining Calgary — whose population includes more than 240,000 people between the ages of 15 and 29 — as a city run, in part, by and for youth.
Twenty-year-old Jujhar Singh lives with his parents in northeast Calgary’s Taradale. “There isn’t much to do around here for people my age,” he says. With “nothing in walking distance” to do, Singh and his friends will drive 20 minutes to a mall just to hang out. “There just aren’t any good spaces tailored for young adults to gather.”
Singh was keen to participate in the Planet Youth survey and is vocal in discussions with its administrators; he wants to see major change in Calgary. He attends a monthly action committee meeting because he believes the troubles facing young Calgarians — such as last year’s 20 per cent spike in assaults involving youth — are the fault of a lack of safety supports and fun opportunities.
Kids, Singh says, “fill the void” with drugs and alcohol when there’s not enough going on around them. “We need recreational spaces, mentorship programs and really clear, positive alternatives to substance use and street culture.
“Young people should have equal access to resources across the city, and we need places to gather and feel secure, valued and connected.”
Arnold would agree: “Planet Youth is about building environments where healthier choices become the easier choices, not through enforcement, but through design.” He says Calgary doesn’t need to completely reinvent its system of support, but does need a series of small, reinforcing changes. “Our city needs to be a place where youth feel safe, where they feel connected and know that if they’re struggling, there’s someone they can turn to.”
It’s a vision that resists nostalgia. Today’s youth are not attempting to, nor do they even want to, recreate an idealized pre-internet past. After all, standing around a convenience store parking lot was hardly fertile ground for a dynamic, tight community — and it was never much fun, anyway.
The goal isn’t to distance young people from fast-moving reality, but to enrich their lives with more activities and social opportunities that make sense in their community.
“If you change the conditions around young people — their opportunities, their relationships, their sense of belonging,” says Blough, “you change the trajectory.”
This story was created with the support of the Avenue Community Story Development Fund. The Fund supports the creation of local reporting on issues such as intimate-partner violence, mental health and addiction, the housing crisis, and more. Thank you to our partners, including reader donors. To find out more, or contribute, visit AvenueCalgary.com/StoryFund.