LIFESAVERS
United Way-funded agencies offer stigma-free support to Oakville teens struggling with mental health,
While other 12-year-old girls were into the latest up-dos, fashion, makeup, tween crushes and celebrity gossip, Becca Cala was planning to run away from home.
It would be four more years before she left, leaving in the dead of night to take her chances on the streets. Cala knew that whatever she encountered on the outside would be better than living at home.
It was a time of great uncertainty and unrest for the teen, who spent months in a revolving door of instability, in and out of youth shelters. It all changed at16, when Cala moved to Oakville and sought help at ROCK (Reach out Centre for Kids) — a United Way Oakville funded agency that offers mental health services, and where she was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Tourette syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
For the first time in her life, Cala understood why she was different and embraced it.
Medication, counselling and support helped her take charge of her health issues. Assistance from Support & Housing Halton, also funded by United Way, reinforced her self- confidence, as did going to school. Since then, Cala has been speaking publicly about mental illness and its impact. The road has been pockmarked with trials and tribulations. Stigma surrounding disorders like Tourette syndrome has been a constant enemy, posing what at times seemed like insurmountable challenges for Cala, now 20.
Tics, including grunting, involuntary growling, barking or roaring, are disruptive. Strangers assume she’s an addict, she says.
Often reviled and berated, Cala says she has only grown stronger because of her experiences.
“People laugh and make fun of me,” Cala said over coffee at a local doughnut shop near Oakville Trafalgar High School, where she’s doing a victory lap this year. “Some think I’m drunk.”
Cala talks about the challenges she faces: — “If other kids were in my shoes, they’d probably kill themselves” — and how she’s learned to release energy in a more healthy, positive way, in the award-winning Beauty Behind Becca, a short documentary by schoolmates Natasha Boshoff and Suaad Issa, who were also in the Communications Technology program at Oakville Trafalgar.
Playing her gold violin and writing poetry are important outlets, as are solid relationships with friends who accept her “as is” and have Cala’s back.
She also received support at school, where accommodations were made to meet Cala’s needs.
Happy, energetic and full of enthusiasm, she’s planning to study special-effects makeup at Sheridan College.
“One of the beauties about Becca is her ability to forgive,” said Melanie Cullis, youth outreach co-ordinator with the client-centred Ready4Life program at Support & Housing Halton, geared to youth 16 to 24.
Participants are young people who are homeless or at risk of winding up on the streets; those facing problems at school, who are unemployed or who have mental health issues that are standing in the way of their progress.
“They don’t have the skills or knowledge to survive,” said Cullis, who works with 30 youth.
“These are young people without adult support, and that’s a challenge for them.”
While the case load is large, Cullis said the program’s goal is to ensure there’s no waiting list, “because when youth are homeless, the need for a place to live is immediate. . . . we do a lot of crisis work and we know there are more kids out there.”
Meeting client needs means working with police, schools, employment and job-skills centres as well as grassroots agencies.
“The hardest thing for clients is to make the first call for help,” said Cullis, who spends a lot of time on the road, reaching out to young people on the streets, in schools “or wherever they are.”
Cala considers herself among the lucky ones, and Cullis is the lifeline she needed to be independent. Cullis secured a subsidized apartment for Cala and helped her find part-time work.
“I call her Mel Mama . . . she’s involved with my life and she cares,” said Cala, who is not in contact with her “parental unit — they don’t deserve to be called parents,” but is in touch with her brothers and sisters.
One of Cullis’s new goals is to help Cala find a job in the right setting where her condition won’t be disruptive.
“The employer who hires her won’t regret it. She takes her commitments seriously.”
Cala knows she faces many challenges moving forward, but she’s ready to give it her all and pursue her dreams.
“In five years from now, my production company will have taken off and we’d be on my boat with shrimp and champagne,” she said with a laugh, before offering advice to other young people who may be struggling.
“You can’t lose sight of your goals,” she said. “And you can’t turn back time.
“I could still be depressed, living at home, mad and angry. Instead, I’m here.”