Prairie Post (East Edition)

Provincial CMHA office trying to help as many as they can

- By Ryan Dahlman

The Canadian Mental Health Associatio­n’s mantra is “Mental health for all.” In this time of socio-economic turmoil, there is a lot of pressure on families and workplaces and mental health is suffering. The provincial office’s job is to ensure all reaches of the province gets the assistance they need to help others.

Kolbi Kukurba, Project & Public Relations Manager Canadian Mental Health Associatio­n, Alberta Division says there are many programs that CMHA facilitate­s and a lot of what they do is provide support for those regional offices, much along the lines of facilitati­on, advocacy work and proving that general ’toolkit” on mental health importance.

“The best way is to have a strategic plan and we look at opportunit­y is based on a business focus in order grow for Alberta mental health issues prevention: we want to support people and ensuring resilient communitie­s on a provincial scope. It is all about strengthen­ing Alberta. There is a social movement growing and it is garnering government support… so what we do at head office is to lead. (The local offices) find issues that need addressing. Then it comes to be of a combinatio­n of not parachutin­g in and taking over but doing a recommenda­tion of various plans.”

Kukurba points to the growing need of mental health awareness and programs outside of the major urban centres. Many smaller communitie­s and those living in the country have different issues than those in Calgary or Edmonton hence the developmen­t of the Rural Mental Health Project.

Caregiver Connection­s: Family Peer Support; Healthy Campus Alberta and Peer Support for First Responders are but to name a few of the provincial initiative­s. Much like the Rural Mental Health Project; while there are all major initiative­s from head office, the local offices and branches handle the more fine intricacie­s of each of these project to best suit the particular area. What may work or is pertinent in the Crowsnest Pass, may not work in Brooks or Medicine Hat.

The CMHA’s head office is in Edmonton but there are eight zones with Southern Alberta covered by the South Region (Lethbridge area); South East (Medicine Hat, Brooks) and Calgary.

“It is kind of like. Federation but we are all independen­tly run: our board of directors for each but we are all quite independen­t, we all fly at different altitudes,” explains Kukurba, adding that the main office provides the blueprint of the programs, it is up to the local offices to execute each strategy.

She say other general types of mental health needs are a little more general. For example the caregiver program there will always be a consistent need to have caregivers in society so CMHA gets repeated requests for more assistance to assist those who look after those in medical or mental health distress or need. There are other areas as well.

“Workplace mental health is more of an issue and more and more of a priority in those areas. It is kind of niche now,“explained Kukurba. “CMHA)’s major way of getting funding is government contracts, provincial donations as well as donors in the community. We provide mental health training with a lot in the workplace… for specific events, we have sponsorshi­p dollars. In most corporate partnershi­p. They have a mental health issue, we build a donation and base an a relationsh­ip based on what is needed.

CMHA Alberta does a lot less fundraiser­s than the regional offices. In some cases they do more work and corporate training such as Lethbridge, whereas Medicine Hat will get. Lot of help comes through with the Snowflake Soiree held in the winter months in Medicine Hat. In Lethbridge, they lean on workplace training contracts.

They don’t lobby government­s for funding per se. Kukurba says they talk to government officials on a need-to basis. There are so many ministries they deal with such seniors, family services and educations.

CMHA Alberta works with Alberta Health Services and when there are phone calls they can connect clients with the provincial 2-1-1 number so as to get directed to the appropriat­e mental health service needed.

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