Tag: Highlights

Petrolia Topic article published on October 4, 2016. Article in full pasted below. Melissa Schlilz, Postmedia Network

Family Health Team working to expand mental health services for youth

Breaking down walls surrounding mental health can be difficult anywhere, but in rural areas like Lambton County, there can be different barriers that present themselves in comparison to urban areas. For youth, there can often be a lack of resources and tools at hand, or a fear of being judged by peers. But the Family Health Team in Petrolia is working to change this. Executive Director of the Central Lambton Family Health Team, Sarah Milner, has specialized in the mental health field. Since the new building opened on Glenview Road, they have taken on new projects specifically concerning youth mental health. She said that in terms of mental health services, when it comes to funding, the majority of services are where the most people are located – in larger urban centres. While she’s noticed a trend of urban services moving out to rural areas, there is a lot of work that needs to be done. “Our family health team is very dedicated to mental health and our physicians out here deal a lot with mental health issues,” Milner said.  “Being rural, they see a lot in their practices, and there isn’t often a lot of resources out this way.” After seeing an ad in the Sarnia Observer regarding St. Clair Child and Youth expanding services in the county, they reached out to form a partnership. Starting this October, they will be expanding hours, coming to Petrolia for two full days rather than just a half day, working with youth up to age 17. “They would provide service and support to anyone in the community, but we offer them a space to do that here,” Milner said. “It’s wonderful for our patients because they’re here, but it also benefits the entire community.” Milner said their location, right across the street from LCCVI, is a great advantage for any students seeking help. As many kids are bussed in from Alvinston or other rural communities, this gives them an opportunity to access services while they are here. The Family Health Team has also worked directly with teachers at LCCVI, giving them the tools and knowledge to help students who may be struggling. “We’ve established some good relationships with the high school,” Milner said, noting that staff came to the centre to learn more about services offered. “So now staff would be familiar with what’s over here and be able to refer students and help make those links.” Milner said she finds that anxiety and depression are most prevalent among youth. In an age of social media and instant gratification, she said there are three trends that seem to most affect youth in terms of mental health. These are a lack of resiliency that kids don’t seem to have when it comes to hardship, a lack of a support system as well as online bullying. “It seems to be in the culture right now that everything is instant, there isn’t a lot of delay to be able to get what you want,” Milner said. “How do you deal with disappointment?” Twenty years ago, if you were bullied at school, going home meant having a safe refuge. But now, with Facebook and other social media platforms, the bullying follows kids wherever they may turn. “When those things are out on the internet, there’s no taking them back,” she said. “That can be very difficult for kids.” Milner said they are working with youth to help build resiliency, so they have the ability to weather those times of difficulty. She said there seems to be a lack of coping skills in young people, especially among girls in grade 10. In rural areas, Milner also noted that people tend to treat things a little differently, and stigma is still an issue. In smaller towns, individuals are a lot less anonymous, making it harder for some to come forward to seek help. “I still think there is a ways to go and I often find having worked in the county in mental health, sometimes it’s a little more private out here,” she said. “It’s the culture.” Despite there still being those who say there is a stigma towards mental health, there is work being done in partnership with the Suicide Prevention Committee to break this down. The Health Team co-facilitates safe talks within the community, including one which is coming up this month in Camlachie. “They teach anyone in the community skills and how to recognize someone who is suicidal, what to do and how to get help,” Milner said. “They don’t have to be the person to fix it, but they can be the person who recognizes it and help that person get the help they need.” Milner said that at this time, they are in a key position because they currently have 14,000 patients that come to them from Lambton County and beyond. While there is a desire and interest to expand mental health services out into the county, sometimes there is a lack of space to do so. Milner hopes they can continue to make connections with other organizations, linking services to people in rural areas, and working with schools to offer additional services. “Where I would like to go with things is strengthen our partnership with local high schools and elementary schools,” she said. “To provide some sort of [education]…resiliency, coping, anxiety, and being able to provide something right at those early grades.” Milner said the earlier they can lay a foundation with younger people, the easier it will be for them once they reach teenage years in dealing with depression and anxiety. She hopes to offer information sessions and tool kits for youth. “It’s slow and steady, making progress, and it hinges a lot on relationships that you have,” Milner said. “We want to help the people who have mental health issues but we also want to help the community to better understand and know where to turn.” With such a high need presenting itself in the county for mental health services, Milner has future plans for expansion in Petrolia’s services. “We’re definitely passionate and committed to mental health and trying to increase the resources out here because we know it’s a huge need,” she said. “Step by step, we’re slowly getting there to having more resources – there’s never enough – down the road we see ourselves having more robust services, it just takes time.” Click here more information about Central Lambton FHT. Click here to access the Petrolia Topic article.

UPDATE – 05 October, 2016: Another story about this award-winning research project was published in the Amherstburg River Town Times.

Windsor Star article published on September 7, 2016. Article in full pasted below. Brian Cross, Windsor Star *Note: The study cited in this article was conducted across a partnership of 6 FHTs in the Erie St. Clair LHIN region: Amherstburg, Windsor, Harrow Health Centre,  Leamington & Area, Tilbury District, and Chatham-Kent, although the article mentions only Amherstburg. AFHTO extends congratulations to all of the participating teams. An innovative team approach to caring for local lung disease patients improved their quality of life so tremendously it’s receiving international recognition. “Huge, impressive, substantial,” are words London academic respirologist Dr. Chris Licskai uses to describe the results of the local study he was involved with, along with physicians and respiratory therapists from family health teams in Windsor-Essex and Chatham-Kent. The study proves that proactively caring for these chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients before they become acutely unwell and teaching them to manage their own illness reverses their downward spiral. Licskai said patients who suffered on a daily basis from wheezing, coughing and shortness of breath so severe they couldn’t do such simple activities as walk from room to room, climb stairs or get dressed, improved to the point they experienced symptoms only a couple of times a week. “The tremendous finding here was that the patients’ quality of life substantially improved,” Amherstburg family doctor Dr. Tim O’Callahan said this week from London, England, where he, Licskai and lead educator Madonna Ferrone presented their research to the European Respiratory Society meeting, the largest respiratory conference in the world. The society was so impressed that the group’s paper was chosen the best primary care research paper and will be published in the Primary Care Respiratory Care Medicine Journal. O’Callahan said health professionals at family health teams wanted to try a new approach to caring for COPD patients — who make up about 12 per cent of their practice. An estimated 850,000 Ontarians have COPD, which includes such chronic, incurable illnesses as emphysema. COPD is most often caused by smoking. “It’s a very common problem in our patients in primary care and it has a major impact on their quality of life,” said O’Callahan, who works at the Amherstburg Family Health Team. The group took a total of their 181 worst-off COPD patients and divided them into two groups: one group received the kind of care they’d always received from their family doctor, and the other received “collaborative self management.” This involved sit-down sessions with respiratory therapists to get detailed assessments, to learn about their disease and to devise an action plan so the patient knew what to do when symptoms worsened. The action plan often included getting prescriptions filled ahead of time for antibiotics and the steroid pregnizone. In the event of a flareup of symptoms, they treated themselves immediately, avoiding the wait to get in to see their doctor, which can sometimes delay treatment by several days or a week. Doctors were regularly brought in to the meetings to consult on changes. Patients learned to recognize when their symptoms were getting out of control and what to do. “We worked on making the patient the expert in their own disease,” said Ferrone, who said she was “completely amazed by the results.” Every three months, patients in both groups were given a COPD assessment test that measures quality of life. The CAT score runs from zero (no impairment) to 40 (completely impaired). The patients in the collaborative self-management group had an average score of 22 when they started and dropped down to 15 in the course of a year. The control group receiving regular care started with a score of 19 and worsened to 22. “Improvement of over three is considered significant and patients in our study increased by seven,” O’Callahan said. Collaborative self management also reduced urgent visits to the doctor by 67 per cent. Trips to the hospital emergency also dropped by 67 per cent. That means that the extra cost of providing COPD patients with collaborative self management is more than offset by the money saved, said O’Callahan. “We can reduce costs and improve quality of life, so it’s all good, all the way around.” The local group was initially turned down for funding from the Ministry of Health and relied on money from pharmaceutical companies. But the early results proved so promising that the ministry changed its mind and provided funding, O’Callahan said. Now, the researchers believe the evidence justifies expanding the program to many more people suffering from COPD, beyond the family health teams. “I’m hoping that our study will contribute to practise change in Canada and perhaps beyond Canada, in a way that will have a longstanding impact on patients with COPD,” said Licskai. For info on the participating teams, visit:

• www.afht.ca
• www.windsorfht.ca
• www.harrowfht.ca
• www.lafht.ca
• www.tdfht.ca
• www.ckfht.ca

Click here to access the article on the Winsdor Star website.