Innovative Sunshine Coast approach leads to success
Participants in the Spirit of Wellness Canoe Circle took a unique and compelling approach to conducting a needs assessment for staff from a variety of community organizations serving mental health and addictions clients in the Sunshine Coast area.
VCH Public Health as well as staff from Mental Health and Addictions and community service organizations on the Sunshine Coast have taken a decidedly “out-of-the-box” approach to helping prepare their staff to deal with mental health and addictions challenges faced in their region. Known as the Spirit of Wellness Canoe Circle, the work to date shows this unique approach has produced results that go beyond the initial intent of the funding, which is designed to assess the needs and strengths of service providers who work with clients who have mental illness and/ or addiction issues.
Using the proceeds of a CAI (Community Action Initiative) Phase I convening grant, the six primary agencies involved (Sechelt Nation (lead agency); Sunshine Coast Community Services Society; School District 46; Salvation Army; Arrowhead Clubhouse; and, VCH) agreed on this revolutionary way of gathering information about the educational and training needs of their staff by having them participate in three evening’s worth of canoe journeys.
The canoe trips have been well attended and drawn rave reviews from the leaders and front-line service providers who’ve participated. The three evening events were organized to identify gaps in the needs of MH&A community clients and the skills and training of the local staff. While the three trips have accomplished their initial goal, they’ve also helped strengthen important relationships between organizations from the Sunshine Coast area, fostered cooperation and stimulated the development of new culturally appropriate training to support service providers and the community at large.
Rooted in the traditions of the Shíshálh First Nation, the journeys were guided by experienced skippers and paddlers pondered questions such as:
• What are the needs of service providers so that they can better address addictions and mental health issues?
• What can we do more of in order to help you do your job better?
The resulting needs assessment will be used to apply for a second phase of CAI grants with the intention of enhancing access to existing training and to stimulate the development of new culturally appropriate training to support mental health and addictions service providers and the community at large. VCH Community Developer Eleonora Molnar has played a coordinating role in the process and feels the approach has yielded far better results than a more traditional needs assessment. Participants of the process agreed with Eleonora, with some indicating they’d never had as powerful an experience before during the needs assessment process.
