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Supporting Families with Parental Mental Illness
Attendance Ki Speer New West- (Purpose Society) Kids in Contro. ki.speer@purposesociety.org Andrea Harstone with Sharon at CYMH at Midtown , MA at UBC Student; Lynn Collette Social Student at U. Vic with BCSS Victoria polo@uvic.ca University of the Fraser Valley Social work student Jasmine Vreeman (with Neil Mercer) jasmine.vreeman@gov.bc.ca Regrets Nicole Chovil, Roxanne Still, Hylda Gryba, Angela Guy
Vancouver Coastal Richmond In Richmond the community table continues to meet monthly and plan the activities for the community. We are now two weeks into our third Resilience Kids Group which has 8 children and the format is a combination of 10 sessions for children and 6 sessions for parents; these groups are jointly facilitated by MCFD, CAP, Adult Mental Health and myself. We are close to finishing the curriculum for the 10 week group. The Super Saturday Club continues and has been very successful with 12 children enrolled, it was a great transition for this group who went straight from the Building Resilience Group to Super Saturday and many strong friendships have build which we often get to see on our Family Fun Night when the families often attend and the connection between the kids is visible. Family Fun Nights continue on one Friday night a month and include a combination of dinner, games and family activities, March will be our 5th and attendance continues to increase. The events are facilitated by members of the community table and usually include staff from BCSS, MCFD, Adult and Youth Mental Health, and Richmond Clubhouse which has lead to a stronger connection between these workers and services. We have done two community education events and April 22nd will be our third event which will be on parenting children with anxiety and is called “Worried About Your Children’s Worry” with a panel discussion made up of a child psychiatrist, a child and youth mental health worker and a person from Anxiety BC, once the poster is done I will send it to you. We continue to try to address the needs of the adolescent community and would welcome all ideas and strategies as this is our goal for the next year. Thanks and look forward to hearing about the next meeting, Roz
Squamish/Whistler/Sunshine Coast /Howe Sound - Angela Guy Update, Children and Youth of Parents Experiencing a Broad Range of Mental Health Challenges: Some 42 agencies and approximately 200 providers participated. Approximately 10 Family Intervention Models are in use in the region however, no single intervention model adequately meets the needs of the target group. The Steering Committee will meet at the end of March and the report will be given to Project Manager and Regional Manager Olga O'Toole at the beginning of April. Recommendations will include (but not be limited to):
Vancouver
Andrea Harstone (Andrea is an MSW student doing her thesis under the supervision of Grant Charles) The Midtown Vancouver CYMH team is doing another resilient kids group. Andrea is doing a thesis on adult children of parents with mental illness. Also Andrea has a publication on Young Carers that will soon be appearing in the journal - Relational Child and Youth Care Practice.
Fraser Protocol Development
Clubhouse, Rehabilitation and Ulysses Agreements Mark Littlefield and Rob met with Anthony Neptune, Manager of all Rehabilitation and clubhouse contracts across Fraser Region. Anthony was keen to hear about the “Family Options” program in Massachusetts and the Ulysses Agreements. He has arranged for Mark to attend a meeting of all the clubhouse representatives from the region in June. Mission Are continuing with the “Know it Program”, promoting family communication. Know-it has similarities to the Beardslee model of Hope, Meaning and Continuity that involves working with the whole family. Mission has a local group from numerous parts of the community who meet monthly (adult mental health, education, child and youth mental health, consumers). They have identified a number of priorities such as education, web based resources and collaborate practice. They have had some “pot lucks” which have been a very positive way of building relationships They are interested in doing education in the schools and moving towards developing of super Saturday club, similar to Vancouver.
Abbotsford Neil has social work students working on an adult of CYMH and Child Welfare file documenting prevalence and other information to describe the needs of families with parental mental illness. The results are just starting to come in. Community committee meets every couple of months. New West
Vancouver Island … Roxanne is working on a Practice Advisory regarding parental mental illness building on the work done in the Interior Region The BCSS group for teens is ongoing. Also, BCSS is doing “Kids in Control” in Victoria. Lynn Collette is doing a research project about “separation and removal when a parent is hospitalized” and a general demographic review of parents in BC. This will include statistics on parents whose kids are removed, profiles of parents with mental illness. Website Michael has been making some changes. When Michael was in BC recently, he and Rob made a video of Rob introducing the site. (check it out www.parentalmentalillness.com) A reminder that Michael can make a page for each community. Thanks again to Michael for his adept work in this area.
Provincial Keli Anderson, Rob Lees and Debbie Saari have had two phone conferences with Sandy Wiens, Director of Child and Youth Mental Health. Sandi is responding to priorities set by two higher level provincial committees to make Parental Mental Health/Illness a priority. Sandi is wanting to recognized the work of this committee and towards that end, Rob developed a briefing note summarizing some of the history and accomplishments. (attached) . Sandi is working towards the development of a Provincial Committee that would include representatives from other Ministries. Since Dr. Darryl Maybery will be here in BC in early May the idea is to have him at an inaugural meeting on May 6th, the day prior to the CYMH Day event at UBC. The plan is to include two members of our committee, likely Rob and Keli on this new Provincial Committee. Children’s Health Policy Centre at Simon Fraser – Fall quarterly will be on parental depression on effects on Children and Youth People Dr. Darryl Maybery Many will know of Darryl’s work in Australia and may have heard him when he visited here about five years ago. Darryl is coming to BC in the beginning of May, in part to meet with the research team on the “Workforce Study” that Dr. Grant Charles, Dr. David Brown, PHSA , Nicole and Rob were involved in. Unfortunately Dr. Brown’s contract at PHSA has not been continued but he is willing to meet with Darryl and the others to move forward the data analysis and reporting on this project. Rob will check out the possibility of taking Darryl around to BCCH to meet Dr. Reebye and also having an informal dinner on May 6th so people can meet Darryl and hear about what is happening in Australia.
Michael will be returning to live in BC this summer to completed his year of pre doctoral internship at the CYMH office in Chilliwack. Conference 2012 Grant reports that Ann Grant, a nurse from Ireland and a PHD student who teaches at University College Dublin will be doing her PhD study under Darryl supervision and will likely be similar to the Canadian “workforce study” that Grant, Dr. David Brown, Rob and Neil were involved in. Ann is hoping to come here to visit within the year . Conference May 7, 2010 BC is the only Province in Canada to declare “Child and Youth Mental Health Day”. Nova Scotia Resources Dr. Stan Kutchner, Sun Life Financial Research Chair is funding the development of booklets for young adolescents to help them understand their parents mental health problem with titles like “My Parent has Bi Polar Disorder” “My Parent has a Substance Misuse Disorder”. Through the connects Keli Anderson has, Rob has been able to preview these and send them out to people in BC for feedback. A number of people have forwarded very thoughtful feedback that will improve these documents which we can expect to see in final form later in the year.
Dr. Patriba Reebye Dr. Reeybe is working with depressed mothers, teaching them how to do infant massage to increase bonding and attachment. Mental Health Commission are onto there next level of consultation based on “Recovery and Well Being” Mental Health promotion and prevention— Keli recommends going to the mental health commission website to insure they have your feedback.
Next Meeting Likely the early evening of May 6th in Vancouver with Darryl Maybery.
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