亚洲天堂

亚洲天堂 Lake resident Kristy Bjarnason, who is a Village of 亚洲天堂 Lake councillor, is pursuing an avenue to bring a peer support mental health program to 亚洲天堂 Lake through the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA).

What the program would provide is an opportunity for people who suffer with mental health or addiction problems to have access to an alternative to traditional treatment through peer support and helping each other. Group counselling sessions would be held on a regular basis and would be free to attend.

The group sessions would be run by peer support volunteers which would be community members who have experience in dealing with mental health. Each peer support volunteer would go through a training module supplied by the CMHA and sign a behavioural conduct contract before being approved to run the meetings.

A proposal has since been submitted to the CMHA, and if selected, the literature and training as well as a small amount of funding for things like snacks and beverages will be provided to jump start things.

鈥淚 was at work at the hospital and someone phoned over a month ago from the CMHA offices in Prince George, asking if we had a peer support mental health network, to which I replied we do not,鈥� Bjarnason told Lakes District 亚洲天堂.

According to Bjarnason, she then took down the representative鈥檚 information to pass along to local physicians, and indicated that 亚洲天堂 Lake would be interested in bringing more programming for mental health support to town. 鈥淎bout three weeks ago, I received a package on how to apply,鈥� she said.

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As part of the proposal, the program would be required to have three facilitators to oversee the distribution of funds, recruit peer support volunteers, facilitate the group sessions, and keep track of general formalities. Bjarnason says she believes the facilitators will be unpaid volunteer based positions, and has volunteered herself to fill one of them along with two other 亚洲天堂 Lake residents who expressed interest.

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A lot of our local resources for mental health are tapped out and the need has gone up the last two years especially with the pandemic. The whole community is tired I was really excited to come across this opportunity,鈥� said Bjarnason.

Bjarnason didn鈥檛 specify when the thinks the the CMHA will decide on the proposal, but did say that she expects it wont take very long. As for next steps, if approved, looking for peer support volunteers and asking around for spaces to hold the group sessions would be a top priority.

鈥淕etting the program started as fast as possible is going to be a to priority of mine,鈥� she said.