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People share what’s working in mental health care
Nov 27, 2024
This is the second part of a two-part story about the lows and highs of mental health care in Canada. Read part one.
On November 19, CMHA released The State of Mental Health in Canada 2024, a first-of-its-kind deep dive into the landscape of mental health, addictions, and substance use health care in Canada using data from across the country.
While it sheds light on some grim realities, The State of Mental Health in Canada is fundamentally about finding the path forward and highlights innovative mental health, addictions, and substance use healthcare action in every province and territory. From publicly funded universal mental health care in Nova Scotia to culturally appropriate training for Inuit paraprofessionals in Nunavut, these pockets of innovation shine a light on the opportunities for better mental health care across Canada.
Not everything in mental health care is broken. The good work shines a light of hope on the future of mental health care in Canada.
In our conversations with 13 people with lived experience accessing mental health care from across Canada, including members of CMHA’s National Council of People with Lived Experience (NCPLE), we also heard about their positive experiences and what’s working well within the current system. These are things we can build on.
Community-based mental health services
If you’re walking down the street and all of a sudden, you’re hit with this overwhelming anxiety, you can just walk in [to the community-based centre], and that’s what’s being done right.
Leanne in Ontario, NCPLE Vice-chair
Access to help when and where you need it is critical, and community-based mental health services are best able to deliver this.
Sheryl, Manitoba: Mental health and substance use, or addiction, go together, and with community-based care, if someone’s getting substance use support, they’ll also address the person’s mental health needs and vice versa, which is absolutely fantastic.
Ailie, Nova Scotia: Our province opened about 10 community-based recovery support centres and they’re phenomenal. People with substance use health concerns can just walk in. There’s no wait list. They do your intake, and you can usually see a counselor that day. You can also sign up for groups and programs. They have a whole suite of things that are accessible and available. And when people get better, they want to give back too. We need to invest more in that, in community care.
Corey, New Brunswick: More community-based care, as an alternative to the biomedical approach, would have a significant, positive effect on mental health care in Canada.
Compassionate people
The biggest strength of our system is actually the folks in it.
Corey in New Brunswick
While many of the people we spoke with experienced a lack of compassion and understanding from service providers at times, they also shared some great experiences with mental health care workers and professionals.
Alana, Prince Edward Island: In Charlottetown, they’ve expanded their emergency department to include a mental health emergency department, which they put a lot of thought into creating, and they’re very compassionate, they’re there to help as much as possible.
Hassan, Ontario: My current therapist has been supportive of my autonomy and decision-making. This is a stark difference from the traditional medical model that I experienced around eight years ago. There’s been a general shift in care-provider attitudes from seeing mental illness from a medical model that requires hospital care towards something that a person can have great involvement and agency in combatting.
Sheryl, Manitoba: I have a wonderful general practitioner who I started seeing when I was 19. She comes with great knowledge about mental health, and she was able to respond when I was ready to disclose my mental health struggles—able to give me a diagnosis and give me options around medication. And she’s been my only treatment provider medically ever since. I’ve never needed to see a psychiatrist though I believe that she would advocate for me to see one and track one down if I needed it. Not everybody has a doctor who’s knowledgeable, welcoming, and committed.
Kerry, Yukon: One psychologist that I met when I was staying at a women’s shelter looked at my diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and said, “Kerry, that’s not you.” He did an in-depth, pro bono psychological evaluation for me and corrected my diagnosis to acute anxiety disorder and PTSD. Later I was asked why I didn’t tell other psychologists my whole story and I said, “Because they didn’t ask.”
Peer support is key
There is so much power and empowerment when you talk to someone who gets it.
Lindsey in Alberta
Support from people who’ve been through a similar experience is invaluable, and peer support is a fast-growing field of care in mental health recovery.
Ailie, Nova Scotia: Peer support is a huge one for me. That made the difference for me 20 odd years ago and it still does because there’s no substitute for talking to other people that get it. They’ve been through it, and when I’m talking with them, I’m not worried about them having an agenda or being biased. I’m skeptical of doctors and I always think they’re looking for the worst, they’re looking for symptoms, but with peers you can just be yourself and you get support. I’d like to see government invest more in peer support services.
Shawn, Newfoundland and Labrador: I find peer support quite helpful, especially for maintaining my well-being, like when things are going well, but I want to make sure that I’m keeping up with self-care.
Lindsey, Alberta: Peer support has helped me. There is so much power and empowerment when you talk to someone who gets it. When you’re going through the tough stuff, you can feel like you’re all alone and you’re the only one who has been through this. Healing is helped when you realize you’re not alone. That connection and hope is one of the first steps to realizing you can get through this, that it’s doable.
Kerry, Yukon: Part of me being me and doing the facilitating that I do is, I’m not looking down or thinking I’m teaching somebody something, I’m there as a peer. I’m just as messed up as anyone else, but I’ve taken my experiences and become comfortable with myself so that I can support others to be comfortable with themselves. I can’t change the system, but I can help other people live through it.