Abstract
We know that prevention is better than cure, but provincial ministries of health in Canada devote less than 1 per cent of their budgets to the prevention of mental health problems. Most of the money goes toward treatment (Nelson, Prilleltensky, Laurendeau, & Powell, 1996). The situation is much the same in the United States (Goldston, 1991).
We want teenagers who are unprepared for parenthood to stop having children, but we are unwilling to invest in family planning, educational, and preventive services (Harris, 1996; Mitchell, 1998a; Simone, 1995). We know that about 26 per cent of Canadian children experience behavioural, learning, emotional,