History of the Centre

Founded in 1992 by child psychiatrist Dr. David “Dan” Offord, the Offord Centre for Child Studies is an internationally recognized research centre dedicated to increasing our knowledge of children’s emotional, social and cognitive problems and finding solutions that improve children’s mental health and their future life prospects.

More than 20 years ago, a few people came together
to take on some tough issues.

In the early 1980s, before there was any idea of creating a formal centre for the study of children’s emotional and behavioural problems, there was a core group of committed professionals from a variety of academic disciplines who shared a deep concern for the well-being of young people. Their idea was to bring good investigators together to pool their ideas and tackle some of the tough problems that put our children at risk.

A new approach to children’s mental health

Very early in its history, the group that is now the Offord Centre for Child Studies came to agree on a fundamental insight – that the usual methods for the treatment of mental health problems were not working well for large numbers of kids who were in trouble or had problems.

“ The group didn’t come together to form a centre or found an institute.
We just wanted to get together to do some good work
on what we all saw as an important issue.
What we very quickly learned in working together was that
new approaches were needed.”
Dan Offord

Traditional, one-patient-at-a-time clinical approaches were too expensive and too hard to deliver to those most at risk. They saw that if real progress was to be made on the development of practical, cost-effective interventions, it would be essential to understand the role of the social environment in children’s mental health, particularly the role played by families and by institutions such as schools, and to develop a broader understanding of the causes and natural history of emotional and behavioural problems in children.

This led to an abiding research focus on long-term population studies – on trying to understand what puts particular groups of children at risk of mental health problems over time. The aim was to identify the influence of biological and social factors on children’s mental health, and the impact of specific intervention programs on these groups of children, so that scarce services could be allocated effectively.

The team also shared a conviction that good science is science that helps improve the world. They felt that, for children, quality of life would never be improved unless research findings were translated into new policies and action. They did not focus on research alone. They also put their energy into training and policy consultation.

Landmark study moves us closer to understanding what puts children “at risk”

The group is best know for its early work on the Ontario Child Health Study, an influential and internationally recognized study of the mental and physical health of more than 3,000 Ontario children aged 4 to 16.

Conducted with the support of the Ministry of Community and Social Services of Ontario and in cooperation with Statistics Canada, the study was carried out in 1983 as the first part of a long-term effort to track the health of young people in Ontario. It showed the close relationship between children’s emotional and behavioural problems, the need for professional help, and poor school performance, and such risk factors as being in a family on social assistance, being the child of a single-parent family, or living in subsidized housing.

The Ontario Child Health Study remains one of the most important
population-based studies on children’s mental health
conducted anywhere in the last 30 years.

The Ontario Child Health Study has helped to provide some of the core insights necessary for the design of effective programs of intervention and prevention in children’s mental health. The Offord Centre for Child Studies continues to be involved with subsequent phases of this long-term research.

Innovation through collaboration

Through the years, what has shaped and sustained the work of the group is its interdisciplinary approach and strong commitment to collaboration.

Combining expertise in child psychiatry, psychology, social work, nursing, epidemiology, pediatrics, and policy development allows for a diversity of skills and experience that encourages innovation. Enhancing this is a remarkable depth in both research and clinical studies gained from its affiliation with two world-class medical communities, McMaster Children’s Hospital and the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. They provide access to a multitude of other related disciplines (health economics, genetics, neurodevelopment research and more), as well as an ongoing connection to the practical realities of children’s mental health issues through the many programs and clinics of Chedoke Child and Family Centre. The team also enjoys the strong support and involvement of groups and institutions such as school boards, parent organizations, Children’s Aid Societies and children’s mental health centres.

With this kind of strength, it’s not surprising that the Offord Centre has grown to become one of the world’s leading centres for the scientific study of child emotional and behavioural problems, highly regarded in Canada and throughout the world for the strength of its research and its commitment to train future generations of scientists to tackle the issues that have an impact on children’s mental health and development.