Fifteen years ago when Monica Kriese needed help for herself and her son, the picture was bleak. Fast-forward to 2016 and Kriese sits on a local community collaborative whose representatives work to provide the best possible services and support to children and youth with mental-health issues.
“I got into this because my son started exhibiting behaviours when he was two-and-a-half or three that weren’t normal for a kid his age,” says Kriese of Kameron, who will soon turn 18. “We went through a ton of day cares before he got a complex illness diagnosis at age seven – bipolar, ADHD and anxiety.”
Kam was never able to attend school full-time, which impacted the single mother’s ability to work out of the home full-time.
Kriese’s lifeline came in 2005 when she read about The F.O.R.C.E. Society for Kids Mental Health, a non-profit organization that works to assist and empower young people and families with lived experience in child and youth mental health.
“I contacted them because there was nobody who could help me – no support groups and there were no resources for parents and families,” Kriese says, noting that one year later, she was employed by the organization to run a small support group and help families in similar situations in the Shuswap.
“First and foremost, I am a parent with lived experience,”she says.
Kriese is a volunteer parent and co-chair of a local action committee, which operates under the aegis of a child and youth mental health collaborative initiated by B.C. doctors. Kameron is a voice for youth.
The collaborative approach means the youth and parents have input into plans for support and services rather than having to accept what someone else thinks they need.
“Everything we do now is what we call family smart,” she says, pointing out the approach is also the underpinning of every event the team puts together. “What we’re trying to do is let parents know what services are available and fill in where there are gaps.”
Shuswap action team participants include representatives from School District #83, RCMP, community partners such as CHMA, Shuswap Children’s Association, the SAFE Society, Dr. Richard Currie, the Eagle Valley Family Resource Centre, another parent with lived-experience who represents pharmacists in town and Child and Youth Mental Health B.C.
“I am certainly very excited to be invited; it’s hard not to be inspired by the people who sit around that table, and the potential for what can be done,” says Currie. “The mental health system, particularly for kids, is really hard to navigate, so any time you get people from all backgrounds around the table, great things can happen.”
The team meets every month to discuss challenges without revealing individual names. One of the biggest challenges now is that most of the service providers are not receiving sufficient funding to provide the badly needed support and services, says Kriese. But, she adds, members of the action team problem solve, with agencies stepping up to help each other.
“Two or three agencies can sometimes get together to solve a problem; it’s not always about money – sometimes we just move resources around,” she says.
“The best thing I can say about the people who work with child and youth mental health is that we’re are all about building relationships,” Kriese says. “We’ve created this wonderful network where we’re breaking down silos and sharing information.”
And the team’s goal for this year is to do more to get the information out to help other kids get on track with mental wellness.
Tomorrow night, the Shuswap Child Youth Mental Health Substance Use Collaborative presents A Journey of Possibilities with motivational speaker Brent Seal who has schizophrenia and will speak about his mental health journey, struggle, recovery, current life and his mental health and high performance wellness training program designed for students and youth who want to boost their mental health and upgrade their lives
Hear Seal speak at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of the Salmon Arm Senior Secondary Sullivan campus.