The Opportunity
Every young person deserves the opportunity to grow up healthy, connected, and hopeful about their future. Yet across British Columbia, too many youth are struggling with declining mental health, social isolation, trauma, and a lack of meaningful support systems.
At the same time, communities continue to face the devastating effects of the toxic drug poisoning crisis. This complex and evolving public health emergency has taken the lives of more than 18,000 since 2016 in our province alone. This crisis needs many innovative ideas working in tandem to save lives, prevent overdoses, and support healthier futures for young people and their communities.
The need has never been more urgent. According to the BC Coroner Services, unregulated drug toxicity is now the leading cause of unnatural death among youth during the period of 2019-2023. In addition, the 2023 BC Adolescent Health Survey which gathered responses from more than 38,000 youth aged 12-19 across 59 of BC’s 60 school districts, found that youth were more likely to have self-harmed, suffered from eating disorders, and experienced abuse than in previous years. They were also less likely to report positive mental health or feel hopeful about their future.
These findings are truly alarming and heartbreaking, but they also point to an important opportunity. Research shows that positive relationships, strong support networks, and a sense of belonging can help protect young people from the effects of adversity and improve long-term health outcomes.
By investing in evidence-based prevention strategies today, you can help young people build resilience, strengthen their mental well-being, and reduce the risk of substance-related harms before they occur. Together, we can create healthier futures for youth across British Columbia.
The Solution
We are supporting a team of youth mental health and substance use experts at the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) and Simon Fraser University’s Capturing Health and Resilience Trajectories (CHART) Lab, led by Dr Hasina Samji (Senior Scientist at BCCDC, Director of CHART Lab) and Dr Geoff McKee (Medical Director for the Population and Environmental Health Unit at BCCDC). The team is researching the moderating effects that positive childhood experiences (PCEs) have on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), in relation to substance use outcomes and associated harms.
What are Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs)?
PCEs are a number of factors that contribute to positive mental well-being in youth. The seven PCEs that will be studied for this research relate to the school and community environment:
- Having family support during difficult times
- Feeling safe at home
- Feeling supported by friends
- Having two invested non-parent adults who take an interest in the child’s life.
- Discussing feelings with family
- Feeling a sense of school belonging
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Participating in community traditions
This research is informed by a 2019 study published in JAMA Pediatrics which concluded that promoting positive experiences in childhood may help to reduce mental health problems in adulthood, even in the presence of childhood adversity. Essentially, even if youth have trauma and difficulty in their childhood, positive connections to their community, school, peers, and caring adults can reduce the likelihood of mental health or substance use issues when they become adults. These results were further reinforced by Dr Samji’s 2025 study which found that having six or more PCEs was associated with better mental health and well-being among youth in BC, and PCEs may protect against depression among youth who have adverse childhood experiences.
With these conclusions in mind, the research team is exploring how PCEs can be strengthened in BC schools and communities. This project will use data from the 2026 Youth Development Instrument (YDI), a biennial provincial well-being survey conducted in schools across BC and led by Dr Samji, to identify factors that foster resilience among young people. The research will generate new insights into how schools, communities, and health systems can better support youth facing adversity, reduce substance use and related harms, and promote good mental health and well-being among all adolescents.
Working alongside youth advisors with diverse backgrounds and lived experience, educators, public health professionals, and community partners, the project will develop actionable, youth-informed recommendations that can be applied across British Columbia. This collaborative approach will help ensure that future policies, programs, and practices are grounded in both evidence and lived experience, creating meaningful opportunities to improve youth well-being and reduce substance-related harms across the province.
This work will contribute to the development of resilience focused school-based approaches and policies, helping to shift healthcare response from crisis intervention to upstream prevention initiatives and system change. Ultimately, the project’s objective is to contribute to healthier futures for young people across British Columbia by informing lasting improvements in prevention, policy, and practice.
The Impact
Donor support will help generate the evidence needed to strengthen youth mental health and well-being across British Columbia.
This research has the potential to influence policies, programs, and practices that reach thousands of young people in schools and communities throughout the province. By identifying practical ways to foster connection, belonging, and resilience, the project will help create environments where youth feel supported, valued, and equipped to navigate life’s challenges.
Over time, these efforts can contribute to improved mental health outcomes, stronger communities, and a reduction in substance-related harms. Most importantly, they can help more young people build healthy, hopeful futures.
Meet the Researchers
Dr Hasina Samji is a Senior Scientist in Population and Mental Well-Being at BCCDC, and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University (SFU). She received her doctorate in infectious disease epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she also completed a Master of Science degree. She is the Principal Investigator for the Youth Development Instrument (YDI), a study that will be used in this project to gauge positive youth well-being, mental health, and development among high school students, with youth engagement and collaborative design at its core. Her passion for helping youth comes from her early career experience working with at-risk populations.
“I spent a decade working with people living with HIV and who use drugs and substances… And I heard so many stories of unaddressed trauma in early life. I felt that working with these populations, there’s certainly work that can be done (harm reduction). But if we had only provided some supports earlier in the life course, we could have changed people’s trajectories. It’s this idea of upstream prevention. If we had provided supports earlier when they were needed, rather than being reactive as society… just really started to resonate for me.” – Dr Hasina Samji
Dr Geoff McKee is a public health physician, Clinical Assistant Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at UBC, and Medical Director for Population and Environmental Health at BCCDC, including the Prevention Health Promotion and Harm Reduction Substance Use Services teams. He contributes expertise in clinical public health practice, epidemiology and quantitative analysis, and knowledge mobilization through his senior public health leadership position.
We are proud to partner with this team who are experts in this field, and are caring and fierce advocates for youth mental health and well-being.
Why Philanthropy Matters
Prevention is one of the most powerful investments we can make in the health and well-being of future generations, yet prevention research is often difficult to fund through traditional sources.
The prevention and reduction of substance use-related harms is a core objective of the BC provincial public health system, as outlined in British Columbia’s Population and Public Health Framework: Strengthening Public Health (2024) and the Ministry of Health’s 2025/26–2027/28 Service Plan. Achieving these goals requires strong evidence to demonstrate which policies, programs, and interventions will have the greatest impact on young people’s health and well-being. This type of work requires research to prove that policies and programs will be worth the investment.
Your support makes this important research possible. By investing in evidence-based prevention, you are helping researchers identify practical ways to strengthen protective factors in young people’s lives, including connection to school, community, peers, and caring adults.
Research shows that positive relationships and supportive environments can improve youth mental well-being and build resilience in the face of adversity. We’ve already seen how population-level approaches can influence health behaviours, with alcohol consumption in our province reaching a 20-year low. This project will generate actionable insights that can inform future policies, programs, and practices across British Columbia, helping more young people thrive. By strengthening the connections and supports that help youth build resilience, this research has the potential to contribute to long-term reductions in substance-related harms and create healthier futures for young people across the province.
We hope that this type of upstream work that helps youth navigate trauma and adversity by fostering positive experiences, meaningful relationships and a sense of belonging, will also contribute to reducing other forms of substance use in the future. With your support, we can help fight the toxic drug poisoning crisis, by creating policies and programs that promote youth connection, resilience, and well-being.
If you would like to learn more about this work, please contact fundraising@pphf.ca.