BARRHEAD - It is a service that is much needed and long overdue.
That is how Don McGillivray and Barry Rose described a new community counseling program Talk Together, hosted by the Barrhead Association For Community Living (BACL).
Officially the program is a counselling program that helps area residents from school-age children deal to adults with the emotional issues from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Together Talk was created by a $129,000 grant under Alberta Health's Mental Health and Addiction COVID-19 Community Funding program. BACL made the application in partnership with support from both Pembina Hills School Division (PHSD) and the Anglican Churches in Barrhead and Westlock.
The one-time grant provides funding of up to $25 million for eligible projects and services to enhance community mental health and addiction recovery supports and services.
"People are under mental health duress and they need counselling," McGillivray said. "Lost jobs, transitions in the oil patch and other industries, senior isolation are just some of the issues we are helping people to cope with."
McGillivray is an Edmonton-based therapist and is very familiar with Barrhead, having worked with PHSD as a behavioural specialist and a therapist at Blue Heron Support Services for several years.
He added that although the grant is to help organizations enhance access to mental health programming and mental health problems arising from COVID-19, the reality is that the majority of the issues people are dealing with predate the virus.
Rose is also familiar with the community, being an Anglican diocese priest in Barrhead and Westlock. He will be leading a group grief and loss session.
Although the province announced that BACL received the grant in late October, it took some time for them to design and implement the program.
BACL unrolled the first part of its program in January at Barrhead and Westlock's elementary schools, Barrhead Composite High School and Barrhead's Outreach School.
"Being in the schools is an important component to the program," interjected Rose, adding the schools welcomed them with open arms.
McGillvray agreed. "The schools were so happy that we walked through their doors," he said.
There are two components to the Talk Together program.
First there is an online portion, in which McGillvray or his practicum student conduct counselling sessions remotely via their secure website (www.togethertalk.ca) or by telephone. The other component is the more traditional one-on-one traditional and group session in-person counselling. The sessions at the school were a combination of in-person and online sessions.
The school counselling included a combination of in-person and online sessions.
In mid-March, Together Talk expanded its sessions to include walk-in sessions in-person sessions.
The walk-in sessions, which follow a strict COVID-19 protocol, are available Tuesdays and Wednesday at the Barrhead Anglican Church from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. on a first-come, first-served basis. Sessions are 60 minutes, including a 15-minute consultation. Like all Talk Together counselling services, sessions are free and no referral is needed. To access walk-in services, clients must be at least 16 years old. Counselling for those under 16 may still be possible, but before the decision is made the therapist must first meet with the parent or guardian.
Before the initial session, clients must first go through an intake session led by volunteer Trudy Gammel.
"We were very lucky when Trudy volunteered. She is so well known and respected in the community it helps set people at ease," Rose said.
Gammel worked for PHSD as a program assistant for many years before moving over to Barrhead and District Family Community Support Services (FCSS) where she is a family school liaison worker. She has also been involved with the Blue Heron Support Services Association (BHSSA) for several years.
In the first two weeks of operation, the in-person walk-in has been a little slow but steady.
"I would have liked to be a little busier, but we are still getting our feet under us and the word is still getting out that this is available," McGillivray said.
Together Talk has served another dozen clients through the online portal and 30 PHPS students.
McGillivray said the program could have counselled even more students if they had the resources.
As for the types of issues McGillivray has heard from the counselling sessions, they are wide-ranging and his clients, in most cases, were dealing with them long before the pandemic hit.
"It just exacerbated them," he said. "There's been a lot of anxiety, depression, separation, marital and relationship issues, addiction and problems resulting from past traumas as well as self-harm and people who have had suicidal ideations."
In addition to the one-on-one sessions, Rose is also hosting drop-in grief and loss group sessions Thursday.
"It is a place where people can talk about their sense and feeling of grief or loss in a safe atmosphere," he said. "The feelings of grief don't have to be from a death, they can come from anything, the loss of job, career, a divorce, even the loss of a driver's licence. That can be a big thing for a lot of people, especially the elderly. Not only the loss of freedom, but they can also feel like they have lost a piece of their identity. It can become a grief situation for them and it can become debilitating for them."
Rose said the feelings of grief and loss don't have a time limit, adding if people do not deal with them in a healthy way they can have an impact on one's life years or even decades after an event.
He gave the example of someone he counselled who had lost his job 30 years prior due to organizational downsizing.
"The loss of that position was a serious blow to his self-awareness and identity. He felt that he was made redundant, not just the job and his sense of loss was so great it still resonated with him years later, so much that it was impacting his marriage."
Rose and McGillvray also noted that they are still in the process of expanding Together Talk to reach out to the seniors' community, especially those in senior living accommodations who may be feeling grief, loss and isolation due to COVID-19 public health restrictions.
