Federal study to give homeless places to live

An article published in the August 25th edition of the Ottawa Citizen:

By Tiffany Crawford

A new federal project will look at helping homeless people with mental illness in five cities across Canada reintegrate into society by giving hundreds of them places to live.

The study, by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, will monitor a total of 2,225 homeless people living with a mental illness in Moncton, N.B., Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg over four years.

Of that number, 1,325 homeless Canadians will be given a place to live, including apartments and group homes, and will be offered psychological and social support to assist them over the four years.

The remaining participants will receive normal services, such as counselling and emergency shelters that are currently available in the five cities.

The participants will be selected next month, said research lead Dr. Paula Goering, who is also head of the Health Systems Research and Consulting Unit at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.

"It is a very exciting chance to learn. We have never done anything like this in Canada before," she said.

Goering said the budget from Health Canada is $110 million.

Candidates will get to choose from several options where to live, and be visited at least once a week by program staff. The researchers aim to prove that by giving homeless people a stable place to live, they will be able to reintegrate into society.

"If it's an apartment we offer rent supplements. But they might prefer to live in a group home," said Goering. "It's important to note that we aren't placing people, we are helping people with their problems."

The study will compare how much money the federal government spends on services for the people who have been given accommodation, compared to those using the regular services, for example policing costs, emergency room visits and shelter beds.

Goering said there will be no requirement for participants to give up drugs.

"Many of the individuals will have mental illness and addictions. We won't put restrictions on people to be dry or stop using and we will still house them and then offer them help with their problems."

Data from this kind of extensive research does not currently exist in Canada, according to the commission.

The research projects will end in 2013, and will produce a body of evidence to help Canada develop services to homeless people living with a mental illness, said Goering.

Photograph by Arlen Redekop, The Province (please click on the photograph to enlarge it).

Canadian hospital pioneers mental-health treatment

An article published is yesterday's edition of The Globe and Mail:

By Anne McIlroy

A Canadian psychiatric hospital will be the first in the world to use a combination of genetic testing and brain imaging to help determine the best course of treatment for patients with schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses.

A few dozen patients will take part starting in the fall, and the experimental program will slowly ramp up to include 100 people, says James Kennedy, director of the neuroscience research department at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. If it proves successful, the program will be a step toward giving psychiatrists more precise tools to assess patients with common psychiatric conditions.

“It is a small revolution, a great opportunity to change, in a fundamental way, how we treat patients,” says Dr. Kennedy, who along with his colleague, Sylvain Houle, is leading the new research initiative.

To read the entire article, please click here.

Also see:

CAMH combines genetics with brain imaging to personalize treatment for mental illness and addictions

I thank John Devlin for bringing this article to my attention.

'SEE-ing' the difference: evaluation shows that $167 million investment improves Ontario's community mental health system, but many still in need

A news release from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH):

TORONTO, June 10 /CNW/ - Can $167 million in provincial funding make a difference to Ontario's community mental health system? According to the results from the Systems Enhancement Evaluation Initiative (SEEI), the answer is yes. Ontarians now have access to more appropriate community mental health services. But, the research also highlights the system's limited resources to serve all those in need.

Led by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)'s Dr. Paula Goering [pictured], SEEI is the culmination of nine research studies that explored the system impact of $167 million of new community mental health funding in Ontario. As Dr. Goering explains, this report is an installment in the ongoing dialogue about what we can do to enhance the community mental health system's ability to meet the needs of those living with mental illness.

The results showed that:

• Access to services improved, with many early intervention and court support services able to double the number of people served, and more clients were matched with the level of care they required.

• Programs are reaching people earlier, as young people are getting help at an earlier stage of their illness.

• Clients experienced a range of positive outcomes such as lower relapse rates in use of hospital resources for those in early intervention programs, and rates of homelessness and the severity of symptoms were reduced for clients in the Ottawa court support program.

However, the data showed that our health system has a limited capacity to serve all those in need, particularly clients who need intensive or daily community level support. Also, clients experienced a lack of other support services, particularly in the areas of housing and vocational training. At the regional level, one of the highest areas of unmet needs for clients was a lack of access to dental, social and vocational services.

"It's important to remember that formal health care services and systems are only part of the picture," says Dr. Goering. "As the results show, the larger society in which the community health system is located has a profound influence on the lives of those who seek help."

The SEEI partner organizations are:

• Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario
• Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
• Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
• Ontario Federation of Community Mental Health and Addiction Programs
• Ontario Mental Health Foundation
  

For more information on what happened and what differences we can see as a result of this substantial investment in Ontario's community mental health system, visit Moving in the Right Direction for a copy of the SEEI final report [PDF].

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is Canada's largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital, as well as one of the world's leading research centres in the area of addiction and mental health. CAMH combines clinical care, research, education, policy development, prevention and health promotion to help transform the lives of people affected by mental health and addiction issues.

For further information:

Media contact: Michael Torres, CAMH Media Relations, at (416) 595-6015

Photograph courtesy of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.