Mental health resources are many, but more needed

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The crosses lining the ground may have caught some by surprise, but to Andrea Keller they were all too sadly familiar.

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The Kingston resident was among the members of the public attending a Community Forum at Armagh Sifton Price Park bringing together agencies dealing with mental illness and addictions.

Keller wore a T-shirt bearing an image of her late son, Tyler, “Forever 26.”

Tyler, who struggled with drug addiction, died at that age in March of 2017 while on a trip to Miami.

“He was a substance user and he just got some toxic drugs,” said Keller.

“We tried to get him help, but there’s just so little available.”

Keller is a member of Moms Stop the Harm, a network of Canadian families affected by substance-use-related deaths or harm, which among other things advocates for better drug policy.

She took the trip to Brockville to be among fellow fighters in the never-ending battle against mental illness and addiction.

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“There are services around (at the forum), but if you talk to every single one of them, they’ll tell you we need more,” said Keller.

The forum, a series of booths set up in front of the Brockville Railway Tunnel, was organized by Rideau Community Health Services, in partnership with the Brockville Police Service.

Roughly a dozen service providers, including the tri-county health unit, Victim Services of Leeds and Grenville, and the Co-Operative Care Centre, aimed to educate their peers, and sometimes each other, about community resources available for people struggling with mental illness, substance use, and related problems such as homelessness.

To illustrate the stakes involved, organizers planted a handful of small crosses on the grass along the Blockhouse Island Parkway, commemorating local residents lost to mental illness or drug use.

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“We actually didn’t have enough crosses to put everybody’s name in,” said Amber Gilmour, a community health nurse at Rideau Community Health Services and one half of an Outreach Team dealing with mental-health-related issues.

A sign amid the crosses read: “The opposite of addiction is not sobriety but human connection. Break the stigma around mental health and substance use.”

“There’s a lot of shame and stigma,” said Gilmour, adding this situation continues after the victim’s death.

“People don’t always get the chance to be remembered … it’s almost like it’s kind of silent.”

Gilmour and Donna Stratton, a community health worker at Rideau, make up the Outreach Team, which helps people struggling with mental illness and addiction and other challenges such as homelessness. They have served some 700 people in Brockville and the surrounding area over the last six months alone.

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“We just like to meet people where they’re at,” said Gilmour.

The community forum ran from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., leading into the Brockville Police Service’s latest Movies in the Park event.

While the uncertain weather proved to be a challenge, agency representatives did get the chance to speak with families circulating in and out of the always popular tunnel.

Cst. Allie DeDekker, the Brockville Police Service’s community safety officer, said the police force works with the Outreach Team on a referral basis, after getting the individual’s consent. Police respond to the initial crisis, and the follow-up then connects the individual to the appropriate resources.

Also on hand were her colleagues from the Ontario Provincial Police, which benefits from a provincial grant allowing them to do more active outreach with Mobile Crisis Response Teams in Leeds and Grenville, in which police and a mental health crisis worker respond to live crises.

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Shawna Marshall, a registered nurse at Brockville General Hospital, works with OPP Cst. Dave Holmes on the Grenville Mobile Crisis Response Team. Along with referrals, the team is also able to respond to live crises.

Mental illness and addiction are increasingly operating “hand in hand” in such instances, said Marshall.

But while the elements are often familiar, each response is different.

“Every individual defines their own crisis,” she said.

In the past fiscal year, added Holmes, the team responded to more than 600 calls in Grenville County alone.

“We’ve attended calls for young children that families need help with, right up to older individuals in their 90s,” added Holmes.

The Brockville Police Service has applied to the province for a grant to fund a Mobile Crisis Response Team of its own.

Keller is painfully aware of the lack or resources needed to address all the problems in the community, despite these agencies’ valiant efforts. But it felt good to be among people who get it.

“It gives you encouragement to keep on fighting when you know that there are people alongside,” she said.

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