More mental-health, substance-use supports for youth in Greater Vancouver

Continued funding from the Province will assist younger folks all through Metro Vancouver entry extra free mental-health and substance-use helps.

The Government of B.C. has invested $1.73 million in Dan’s Legacy Foundation to help 15 health-care and different staff who present youth with mental-health and substance-use providers, together with therapists, social staff and youth outreach staff. This funding will assist greater than 600 youth by means of core counselling and wraparound packages, comparable to Indigenous cultural workshops, health and job-skills coaching.

“When a teenager makes the brave choice to return ahead and get assist, we would like helps to satisfy them,” stated Sheila Malcolmson, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. “Dan’s Legacy’s peer staff and therapists assist youth stop and survive overdose, and we’re honoured to fund their life-saving work.”

Dan’s Legacy Foundation supplies trauma-informed and culturally delicate counselling and intervention packages to youth with mental-health and addictions challenges, notably younger adults dealing with obstacles to accessing therapy. This funding builds on the federal government’s $1.35-million funding for Dan’s Legacy in 2021 and ensures the inspiration’s very important providers attain extra younger individuals who want them.

“We know there’s a small window of alternative to be there for the youth once they ask for assist, and this funding from the Province permits us to extend our capability to totally meet that want,” stated Barbara Coates, govt director, Dan’s Legacy Foundation. “We thank Minister Malcolmson and the Province for his or her continued and important help.”

Enhancing helps for youth dwelling with mental-health and substance-use challenges is an integral a part of A Pathway to Hope, B.C.’s roadmap for constructing the great system of mental-health and addictions care that British Columbians deserve.

Quotes:

Andrew Mercier, MLA for Langley –

“Dan’s Legacy Foundation supplies such vital help providers for the younger folks in our group. I’m grateful and assured that this funding will assist extra youth notice their full potential, whereas offering them the suitable helps to take action.”

Tom Littlewood, program director, Dan’s Legacy –

“Since 2016, we can have labored with over 1,500 youth in Metro Vancouver – 600 within the final 12 months alone. Not solely will we see youth in hospital once they’re asking for assist, however we can divert them from a visit to emergency in lots of circumstances as nicely. With rapid intervention, our therapist can both stabilize the youth or facilitate a visit to the hospital with out the state of affairs changing into a vital incident.”

Destiny Newton, shopper, Dan’s Legacy –

“Dan’s Legacy has given me the energy to maintain preventing, to maintain transferring ahead. They have given me hope in a time after I thought I wasn’t going to make it. Some folks don’t have an excellent begin, some don’t have help or the love that they deserve. The solely time you have to be trying down on somebody is if you’re serving to them get again up, identical to Dan’s Legacy has completed for me. That’s what Dan’s Legacy is all about; serving to youth and never letting them fall by means of the cracks of the world we reside in right this moment.”

Quick Facts:

• During the pandemic, Dan’s Legacy Foundation has seen a 50% enhance within the variety of youth reaching out for assist.
• In 2021, 450 younger folks accessed Dan’s Legacy’s providers.
• Youth can entry providers by means of a self-referral, a referral from family and friends or by means of partnerships with different community-based organizations providing housing, training, restoration or evaluation.

Learn More:  

Dan’s Legacy Foundation: https://danslegacy.com/

Learn about A Pathway to Hope, our authorities’s imaginative and prescient for psychological well being and addictions care in B.C.:
https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021MMHA0049-001787

Low- and no-cost mental-health helps:
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/managing-your-health/mental-health-substance-use/virtual-mental-health-supports