When I was a teenager, one of my brothers began showing signs of mental illness. He was 17. In the mid-1980s there was a great deal of stigma around mental illness and there were no real supports in the community or in schools. My family had no idea what to do or how to handle an increasingly difficult situation. My brother, undiagnosed at this time, began to self-medicate with street drugs and became increasingly ill. Over time, his condition worsened and eventually, he was hospitalized. He has now been living with a complex mental health diagnosis for over thirty years. While he is in a safe place now after years of advocacy from my family, he has had a very difficult life and had to fight for the care that he needed.
Earlier this month I stood next to Judy Darcy, the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, as she announced that the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows School District had been selected as the first district in B.C. to receive integrated, leading-edge mental health supports with teams in our schools to connect students to the help they need I couldn’t help but think about my brother, and how things could have turned out differently for him if these early interventions services were available in his school while he was growing up.
For many years, people in our community have struggled to access mental health and addictions care. When the B.C. Liberals were in government, they cut key services for youth in Maple Ridge. I’ve spoken with families who were desperate to find help for their children but frustrated with how complicated it was to navigate the system. They would get shuffled around from place to place, forced to tell their story over and over again.
Our government is proud of the results we’ve delivered already, but we know there’s a lot more work to do. We are choosing to invest in people, and make sure help is available when and where they need it.
MLA Lisa Beare and I have had a number of conversations with Minister Darcy about the need for more mental health and addiction supports in our city, and I want to thank the Minister for picking Maple Ridge as the first community to receive these leading-edge wraparound supports to connect our students to the care that’s right for them.
What will make this program different from other support services is that rather than requiring people to navigate a complicated and fragmented system of care, we will bring the care to them.
Across the city, team-based primary care and specialized service providers will work closely with integrated teams in schools to offer wraparound care to children, youth and their families. Now, when children and youth in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows start to show signs of mental health issues, there will be a team standing by, ready to support them and meet them wherever they feel comfortable – whether it’s in their homes, schools or out in the community. Our kids will be able to ask for help once and get the help they need. For many families in my community, this is huge.
Mental health and substance use challenges touch people from all walks of life in Maple Ridge, and I’m proud to be part of a government that understands that helping people starts with supporting our kids before small problems become big ones.