Mental health: Progress made, more to do

The ‘How Many Wade?’ group brought an unlikely friendship. Someone who’s been away for 35 years, and someone who’s been living on the Island for 29, but left to go to work in Saskatoon, met on the ‘How Many Wade?’ group, and discovered a shared a similar mindset. We are a social worker and a community service worker and noticed the crisis that has been going on here with mental health.

We both have a pro-active and collaborative mind set, and discussed the many services and programs that we felt, having worked elsewhere, that the Island is lacking. We knew some small changes could make a big difference and that someone had to step up. Through working in other provinces, as well as in P.E.I., we have met and been in contact with people all over Canada, and thought why not use those resources? Why not all come together to serve not just P.E.I. but all of Canada better? So we started a Facebook group. It’s not as big as the #howmanywade campaign, but there are business owners, social workers, pastors, youth workers, and nurses in the group; people who care.

It’s mostly for resources awareness and articles, but we have to start somewhere. During a recent meeting with the deputy minister of health, we suggested P.E.I. create a mental health awareness day. The people have nowhere to go, and if there is somewhere to go, people don’t know about it. The deputy minister loved the idea. She thought that would be a great way to put on an event and show the people what resources they are placing into schools.

The details of the event aren’t finalized or released yet but they are looking at doing something the end of September. We realize the focus has to be on their new programs in schools, and demanded they do an assessment of all the youth in these schools, and an assessment when the year is over. That’s what we would like to see happen.

We would like mandatory workshops on suicide, mental health and sexual abuse awareness. We would also love for frontline workers to be available during this awareness event. People need to know they have options.

Although it is a great thing they are doing, the province needs to be doing more, and it may take some time, but people really need to see what all is out there, some have no clue. Almost anyone can do a Google search, but that’s not enough. People are dying. There were three suicides on the Island at least in the last two weeks. The province is looking at the suicide prevention plan but it needs to be doing more. We need a grief counsellor, when someone takes their life the friends and families suffer the aftermath. There’s nowhere for them to go.

People don’t always have the kind of money needed for a private councillor or they don’t have benefits. Wait times for free counseling and the turnover for that counseling is just baffling. We talked about that too. We want to start a mentoring program, to help people going through this.

There’s still a ton of work to do, but our meeting went well with the deputy minister. She was compassionate and had great empathy. She’s already taken a few small steps, and plans on making a few more strides.

It won’t be overnight but it’s really great to be a part of making some changes hopefully this will be a place in the years to come where people can thrive and get the help they need.

It’s hard to have patience when your loved ones are suffering. But it goes to show if you just start small and just be pro active you can be part of the change.

We both have a pro-active and collaborative mind set, and discussed the many services and programs that we felt, having worked elsewhere, that the Island is lacking. We knew some small changes could make a big difference and that someone had to step up.