Items filtered by date: January 2019

Alberta Health Services, Integrated Crisis Access Team (AHS ICAT) is a mental health & addictions group of professionals who help all ages with urgent and non-urgent mental health concerns. Stop in from 9am-4:00pm Monday-Friday on the third floor of the Aberdeen Centre located at 9728 101 Avenue in Grande Prairie. You can also call 587-259-5513 where you can leave a detailed message, and someone will get back to you.

When you visit ICAT you can expect to work with a team member to go through a brief assessment, discuss different options then connect you to the most appropriate service in the community. Its recommended to bring a support person with you to help on this journey. Please check out this PDF with ICAT information, http://www.gpyouth.ca/icat-mental-health-team.html.

I was asked to write some things I went through, being a parent, of a child with mental illness. At first, it's hard to believe that your honor roll, smart, outgoing child has a mental illness. At first, I just thought that he turned 19, and was getting a little wild. Then other people in the family and close friends were telling me things he was doing, that didn't make sense. So we had a family meeting, and for his own safety we had to put him into the hospital. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. Thank God I have the best family support behind me and my son. I think family support is one of the biggest things a person needs. And another thing I found that helped me is talking to other people about it. It seems like the more you talk about it to other people the more other people confided in me about their family and what was happening to them. My son has taught me a lot; how to be patient, and sincere and Earth loving. He loves helping others and making other people happy. He is a free spirit and I love him.

When I was twenty I started not feeling good. I didn't know why, but I got the blues and as time went on I got worse and worse. I lost most of my friends and the few that stayed wondered what was wrong with me. I became depressed...not just under the weather, but clinically down. As time went on I got worse and worse. All my family backed me up and decided to go for help. My friends and family got me to talk to a doctor and he figured it was severe depression. Because of my deteriorating condition they all decided to put me on the Psych Ward. I couldn't snap out of it and was thinking only of dying and suicide. So what was I to do... I was seen by a psychiatrist who put me on some anti-depressants and for 3 torturous weeks I held out and finally started to feel good. The medication brought me out of the depression. It felt so liberating after the meds kicked in... Just amazing. You don't realize what you have until you lose it...and I had lost my hope, but regained it back stronger. I was healed and everyone who loved me was relieved.

It has been an exciting and busy 2018 at Canadian Mental Health Association Alberta Northwest Region (CMHA ANWR). In 2018 CMHA celebrated our centennial year. We attended the 100 year celebration in Montreal at CMHA National Conference. The conference had keynote speakers from around the globe who have had huge impacts in their Countries as well as Globally. We also enjoyed presentations from some of the strongest Canadian leaders paving the way in Mental Health. We came back feeling excited and eager to plan and roll out the wealth of information we brought home to improve our community.

In August of 2018 we recruited a new executive Director Randy Arsenault. He brought over 20 years of healthcare administration to our team. His gentle, down earth and assertive approach to challenges makes him the perfect leader for our local CMHA. After all, good mental health in the work place is mightily important to us. Over the years we have grown from just a few staff and are now over 75 strong!

What we do.

Our Vision is Mentally Healthy People in a healthy society. It is our mission to facilitate access to the resources people require to maintain and improve mental health and community integrating, to build reliance and support recovery from mental illness.

At CMHA ANWR we offer 7 programs to Grande Prairie. Mobile Addictions Outreach is one of our busiest program, we work with high-risk individuals at the street level and meet and support them where they are at. Besides maintaining accreditation for our largest program, Support for Persons with Disabilities we have started working towards becoming accredited as a whole. The SPD program offers care for people who cannot live independently, in some cases 24/7 hour care is required. Our Intensive Case Management, Housing First Program has remained strong in supporting homeless individuals with multiple barriers find and maintain living space as well as individualized life planning & training and regular visits. Our Hub Resource Centre, located in our apartment building Willow Place has continued to deliver fun activities to the community such as meal prep, cooking, arts, crafts, bingo, board games, coffee, seasonal feasts, field trips and more! Willow Place is a 57 unit affordable apartment building that CMHA ANWR owns and operates. The city of Grande Prairie owns the land, and leases it to us for $1 year! Thank you City of Grand Prairie! We offer a course called Living Life to the Fullest. It is an interactive course designed to help you understand your feelings, thoughts and behaviors and what to do about them.

Lastly we applied for and won a RFP for Permanent Supportive Housing two-year pilot project managed by the City of Grande Prairie. The project has just got the green light to go full bore ahead! We have taken over Parkside Inn to provide a safe and warm space for people who have a hard time staying housed due to mental health issues. We are so excited to support and meet people where they are at and to provide an around the clock friendly and supportive community with an expert mental health team.

We have had some amazing support in 2018. Thank you Grande Prairie Auto Group for the donation of a Van, for all the money you have raised for us, as well as the donations of items from Costco over the holiday season. Your support has been amazing in 2018, and we cannot thank you enough. Thank you, Atco Electric for volunteering at our holiday feasts, and for the donations you have raised for us. Thank you Prairie Disposal for your big donation!! Thank you Medicine Shoppe for your donations. Lastly thank you to all our sponsors at our 2018 Masquerade Gala; Big Country 93.1, Pomeroy Hotel, On Rock, Grande Prairie West Dental, Bee’s Photography, Neil & Associates, Sports Wear Plus, Wesland Insurance, Tidewater, McNabb Lucuk, Saltmedia and all the individual volunteers and supporters.

Would you like to be involved with developing exciting and innovative initiatives to make a difference in your community? Do you want to have a voice for positive change for addiction and mental health services? Do you feel like ‘more can be done’?

Canadian Mental Health Association Alberta Northwest Region (CMHA ANWR) is growing our Governance Board of Directors!

To diversify the skills and experience of our board, we are hoping to find individuals with the following experience or interest:

• Legal
• Government relations
• Fundraising and event planning
• Finance
• Child and youth education
• Community outreach services
• County of Grande Prairie representative
  No previous Board experience required but would be beneficial.

Projects that we are currently involved with:

• Permanent Supportive Housing two-year pilot project with the City of Grande Prairie
• Design, Development and construction of 2 brand new assisted living buildings

Future Visions

• Early childhood education in mental health
• Community-based peer support services such as Recovery College
• Transitional housing
• Expand services out of Grande Prairie to Northwest region
• Partnering with community agencies to centralize services

To For those interested please fill out our appciation here: Become A Board Member