La Clé des Champs is pleased to present Mike Santoro as Guest Speaker where he will discuss The 80/20 Project

Date: March 3, 2009

Place: La Clé des Champs
2226 Henri-Bourassa East, Suite 100
Montreal (Ahuntsic), Quebec
corner Parthenais Street

Time: 7:00 p.m.

Language: English

Cost: Free

*part of our regular quarterly conference

Please call La Clé des Champs at 514-334-1587 to reserve your seat

In practical terms, families need information (about mental illness, symptoms, course, prognosis, and services available in the system); they need help in acquiring skills (to cope with the illness and its consequences – problem solving, conflict resolution, communication, assertiveness, stress management), and they need support for themselves in order to go through the hardship of mental illness and resolve their own emotional burden. They need to be helped to build on their strengths, survive their crises, meet their challenges and enhance the quality of their lives. A competence paradigm that replaces the traditional model of pathology that undermined capacity and self esteem can offer a developmental and educational model that focuses on family coping and adaptation, emphasizes the family’s strengths, resources and expertise, and defines relations with professionals as a collaboration, with a sense of mastery and hope.

I suggest that one way to ensure that families receive the attention and support they need is through the creation of a family navigating system. Family navigators are individuals assigned to a family once a relative is diagnosed with a mental illness.

The role of a navigator is to help guide the family through the system, by offering information, support, and referrals to relevant services, and by addressing issues and concerns integral to the course of the illness. (I.e. where would the ill relative live once stable; how to create healthy and supportive relationships that would promote the relative’s recovery while protecting the well-being of the family, etc.)

Navigators could (and should, in my view) be members of community-based organizations, such as family organizations, but they will hardly be effective without the referral and cooperation of the hospitals who diagnose and treat patients. The challenge would be to create a mechanism that could ensure that referrals are done as a matter of course.

The day that each family with a newly diagnosed member will be assigned a “family navigator”, is the day I will feel that families are receiving their fair share of attention and assistance.

Ella Amir
Executive Director
AMI-Quebec Action on mental illness

The majority of families have a central role in supporting their relative with a mental illness. They often serve as the primary caregivers and informal case managers. Where they are not involved (with their relative’s care), I suggest that it is the outcome of the lack of support which often leaves them disoriented, ineffective in their attempts to help, and practically makes them secondary casualties of mental illness.

In the era of the recovery movement, it is important to recognize that recovery is a process that both the ill person and the family need to go through in order to reclaim their lives. We know that serious mental illness often has a devastating effect on the entire family. The adjustment process is long and painful and requires courage, determination and support.

This is where professionals have not been doing a very good job; both before the implementation of the current action plan, and, I am afraid, also as the implementation takes hold.

I do understand the limitations of the present system in addressing the needs of families. I do not believe that practitioners in institutions who focus their attention on patients should necessarily be those to offer the support families require. However they are a crucial link in referring families for help. The responsibility of ensuring that support for families is available lies with the Ministry of Health and Social Services and should be secured by its Plan d’action. I do not believe that adequate supports are available at the present time. I have read the Guichet d’acc̀ès en santé mentale pour la clientèle adulte des CSSS document where there are references to what needs to be done to improve the situation. It is an improvement, at least in theory, but the challenge will be to make it happen.
(Part 3 to be continued next week...)

Ella Amir
Executive Director
AMI-Quebec Action on mental illness

(The following presentation was given by Ella Amir on November 26, 2008 as part of a round table discussion including viewpoints of health network partners. It was part of an international conference on the integration of mental health into primary care.)

Today, the relationships between family caregivers and practitioners reflect a departure from earlier patterns that characterized the institutional and post-institutional eras. In the earlier days when people with mental illness were kept in hospitals, often for the better part of their lives (or perhaps the worst!), families were little involved and had distant relationships with professionals. Following deinstitutionalization (which often turned into trans-institutionalization), the contact with professionals increased. Families have often served as the first and last resort for their ill relatives but typically with little guidance or support. The contact with professionals, instead of helping with their caregiving role, often magnified the family problems. With the common perception viewing families as dysfunctional and pathogenic, families have often been held accountable for their relative’s illness and pushed to therapy as a means to correct the problem.

Today’s practitioners are increasingly recognizing the contribution families can make to the recovery process of their ill relatives. They are also gradually recognizing that families have particular needs of their own, which are defined by their caregiving role.

So this is the good news. The gradual change in attitude is long over-due, but it will not be sufficient as long as it does not translate into concrete supports for families.
(Part 2 to be continued next week...)

Ella Amir
Executive Director
AMI-Quebec Action on mental illness

In similarity to my experiences while socializing, in school I have had great trouble paying attention to lectures. As is the case when I am interacting with people, my main strategy has been to try to develop a deep interest in what I am being taught. I also write extensive amounts of notes in order to keep me focused on what the professor is telling us. My reading speed is also a concern of mine. Unfortunately, I have not developed any very effective strategy to speed up my reading. I pay the price for a slow reading speed with hours upon hours of work. However, I always leave some time to see friends, since a lack of an adequate social life will surely wind me up in the hospital. What keeps me successful in school is mainly a love for academia, something that makes all the effort worth it.

I think every mentally ill individual has his or her own unique challenges and difficulties. I think every person needs to adapt to his or her own situation and figure out techniques for dealing with what they themselves must face. I hope you have appreciated this article as one mentally ill person’s account of his own personal struggles to lead a healthy, successful life.

Thank you.
Jason Settels