For the second year in a row, professionals involved with mental health of youth met for an opportunity to enforce team-based care.
A Child and Youth Mental Health Collaborative in Williams Lake was one of many created by Interior Health last year.
The initiative has now spread throughout B.C. and has resulted in 20 actions teams, said Dr. Glenn Fedor who heads up the collaborative along with project manager Anna Meyers and Matt Neufeld, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club.
“These teams were given initiatives to do locally and one of ours was to create awareness and build relationships to try and understand what roles we have in our community,” Fedor said.
One of the collaborative’s action team goals is increasing timely access to mental health care in the community. Building trust will go a long way in achieving that, Fedor said.
Marilyn Charleyboy, the co-ordinator of the restoring balance family program with Denisiqi Service Society, spoke about her own walk in darkness as a single parent and feeling utterly alone.
“I want you all to know that when people struggle with traumas in their lives they don’t even understand they have a choice to make things go differently,” Charleyboy said.
Various agencies had booths around the room sharing information about their services.
For more about the menth health collaborative, see upcoming issues of the Williams Lake Tribune/Weekend Advisor.