Mental health clinicians and nurses connect with youth at annual theatre production

Dream Catchers, presented as part of BC Youth Week, built awareness, promoted wellness and encouraged dialogue about issues facing teens.

The event also provided the perfect venue for Vancouver Community C&Y mental health clinicians and public health nurses to connect directly with the youth audience who may not otherwise have known that community-based health services exist to meet their specific — and sometimes — complex emotional needs.

Dream Catchers ran for five days, from April 30 to May 3, at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre. It chronicled nine teenagers who struggle to catch their dreams as they are faced with the daunting questions of who they are and what comes after high school.

“Dream Catchers accurately explored the topics of self-harming behavior, suicide, body image, peer pressure, addiction, sexuality and life transition,” said Karen Dietz, an Intake Clinician with C&Y Mental Health. “These are issues we see repeatedly, particularly with senior high school students and young adults, and is tricky subject matter for any youth to negotiate their way through.”

C&Y mental health workers and nurses attended each performance to provide information and outreach to anyone, if it was required, and talk about the services available from the Vancouver Community C&Y mental health and public health nursing team.

“I felt quite honored to be introduced to the audience and to have people respond positively to my presence as a VCH mental health counsellor,” said Sharon Van Volkingburgh, C&Y Mental Health Clinician. “Our literature was given out at the performance and, over the past week, we have had follow-up calls from the outreach we did at Dream Catchers.”

Vancouver Community health professionals who participated in Dream Catchers outreach included:

• Jean Fougere, SACY Youth Engagement
• Judy North, C&Y Mental Health Clinician
• Christopher Macallum, C&Y Mental Health Clinician
• Nicole Hovbrender, C&Y Public Health Nurse
• Asifa Kassam, C&Y Public Health Nurse
• Pat Brunsdale, C&Y Public Health Nurse
• Robin Parfitt, C&Y Public Health Nurse

Dream Catchers is the latest work from the Some Assembly Theatre Company’s  Roundhouse Youth Theatre Action Group Project. The project is now in its 13th year and VCH has consistently served as a key partner.  More information is available at http://www.someassembly.ca.