Assistance with navigating mental health services in the Central Zone - Nova Scotia Health Authority

404-3504 ext. 201

From the Healthy Minds Cooperative's February 2013 newsletter:

Navigation

Going through the mental health system can be like trying to find your way through a maze. Navigation is a service that the Healthy Minds Cooperative provides that helps guide people living with a mental illness, and their families, to connect with support services in the community.

The Navigator can answer your questions and concerns about:

• Services in the community

• Support groups

• Programs and workshops

• Referral Services

• Advocacy

• Web-based resources

For more information about navigation, please call (902) 404-3504 ext. 201 or email hmnavigator@eastlink.ca.

Image credit


Also see:

Capital Health Addictions and Mental Health Program

OurHealthyMinds.com

Healthy Minds Cooperative

The Self-Help Connection


Community Helping Trees

Bedford / Sackville

Clayton Park / Fairview

Cumberland County

Dartmouth

Halifax Peninsula

Mental Health Services & Supports in Communities Across Nova Scotia

Newcomers

Prospect / Tantallon / Timberlea / St. Margarets Bay

Dartmouth Seniors

Spryfield

Spryfield Youth

Windsor / West Hants Community

Family Education Group for Mood Disorders - Halifax

A poster photographed today at the Mood Disorders Program locaton in Halifax:

Please click on the photograph to magnify it.

From the OurHealthyMinds.ca website:

Mood Disorders Program

Often collaborating with family physicians, the Mood Disorders Program provides consultation, assessment, group therapy and follow up for people living with mood disorders, especially bipolar disorder. The program also provides services for people at high risk of developing a mood disorder as a result of family history, and focuses on mood disorder research and education.

Telephone: (902) 473-2585

Location

Mood Disorders Program
QEII Health Sciences Centre
Abbie J. Lane Memorial Building, 3rd floor
5909 Veterans' Memorial Lane
Halifax, Nova Scotia
B3H 3E2

Also see:

Research: Mood Disorders (Dalhousie University)

Mood Disorders Research Group Contact Page

Capital District Health - Community Mental Health: First Visit

From the OurHealthyMinds.com website:

Community Mental Health has changed the way individuals access their services.

First Visit

On May 2, 2011, Community Mental Health changed the way individuals access their services. In the past, Individuals have often had to wait weeks or months to be seen. These changes will drastically reduce the time they will have to wait. Each Community Mental Health location will have a designated day or days each week when they will be seeing new clients. This new initiative is called First Visit.

First Visit is a simple, easy way for people with significant mental health problems or mental illness to access help from Community Mental Health. We do not offer emergency services. Call Mental Health Mobile Crisis - 429.8167 or 1(888) 429.8167 – or go to your local emergency department.

During your First Visit, you will see a therapist to talk about the mental health problem that prompted you to seek help; what helps your manage; and ways to build on your strengths and resources. If you need further assessment or treatment, this will be offered.

How do you book a First Visit?

We encourage you to contact your family doctor for a referral. They will receive information about your visit in a timely manner.

You can [also] book a First Visit [on your own] with one of our Community Mental Teams by calling on Monday (Friday if Monday is a holiday). Each of our locations has a specific day, or days, each week when new clients are seen.

Here are our locations and telephone numbers:

Dartmouth Community Mental Health
Belmont House, 33 Alderney Drive, Dartmouth
Tel: 466-1830
First Visit is offered on Thursdays.

Bayers Road Community Mental Health
Suite 109, Bayers Road Centre
7071 Bayers Road, Halifax
Tel: 454-1400
First Visit is offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Bedford/Sackville Community Mental Health
Cobequid Community Health Centre
40 Freer Lane, Lower Sackville
Tel: 865-3663
First Visit is offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Cole Harbour Community Mental Health
Cole Harbour Place
51 Forest Hills Parkway, Dartmouth
Tel: 434-3263
First Visit is offered on Tuesdays.

West Hants Community Mental Health*
89 Payzant Drive, Windsor
Tel: (902)792-2042
First Visit is offered on Tuesdays.

This service is offered through Capital Health and there is no direct cost to the patient. We provide consultation and individual and/or group therapy to people living with a mental illness or struggling with a mental health problem. We work closely with family doctors and community agencies.

First Visit is for individuals 19 years of age and older.

*West Hants supports adults, youth and children.

Also see:

Stats, research lead to sooner First Visit

Disclosure guidelines protect privacy, improve care

An opinion piece published in today's edition of The Chronicle Herald.

By Ian Slayter (pictured)

Capital Health’s Mental Health Program recognizes the need to listen better to our patients. Only the people living with mental illness can help us understand their goals and needs as they see them. For this reason, we must provide them with the information, treatment and support they need to follow their own path to recovery.

Often, care is shouldered by families — people, whether relatives or friends, who provide the emotional and practical support that is so critical to someone living with mental illness. They are one of our greatest resources because they provide timely, insightful information about a person who is becoming more ill or not responding well to treatments.

Providing families with general information about treatment and care improves their understanding of what their loved one may be experiencing. If we encourage patients to consent to share basic clinical information about their illness, treatment and needs, families are better able to help them. We know from research that working with families improves patient outcomes.

We have a duty of care not only to the patient but also secondarily to the family, as defined above, both to help them support the patient, and to help them cope with the challenges of living with, and caring for, someone with mental illness.

We have drafted disclosure guidelines, with insight from individuals living with mental illness, families and care providers to guide how and what information can be shared when the patient consents, and what is withheld when the patient is not prepared to do so.

This is all in accordance with the Personal Health Information Act and other applicable laws of Nova Scotia. We are now finalizing the guidelines in response to the extensive feedback received from stakeholders.

In an April 28 opinion piece titled "Mental health care: Are our rights to privacy being eroded?" Aileen McGinty stated that our policies, meaning the draft disclosure guidelines, "may not be in compliance with legislation." However, we have taken steps to ensure that the guidelines do follow legislation and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

She suggested the guidelines prioritize the rights of family members over the rights of patients. We respect the rights of the individuals living with mental illness and work with them to arrive at the level of consent they are comfortable with, first and foremost. There are certain situations, allowed by law, where limited disclosure may be necessary to prevent danger.

Patients’ personal health information is private and confidential. The central message of our guidelines is that care providers should explain to patients that sharing of some of their clinical information about their illness, treatment and related needs can improve the level of their support. The care providers are advised to ask if the patient wishes to consent to share particular information with designated persons.

Ms. McGinty’s feedback is helpful; we need to make certain elements clearer. We have received a lot of helpful feedback from many people. The disclosure guidelines will be available on our website, OurHealthyMinds.com, along with other supporting material.

Collaboration is a major step in improving our services. The insight we gain from individuals and families based on their experiences in our system is invaluable. The disclosure guidelines provide a process to open communication among individuals, families and care providers, while protecting and respecting the rights of individuals living with mental illness.

Dr. Ian Slayter is clinical director, Adult General Psychiatry Services, Capital Health Mental Health Program; and assistant professor, Dalhousie University, department of psychiarty.

Also see:

CDHA Mental Health Program Disclosure Guidelines - DRAFT - 30 March 2011

Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)

From the March 28th edition of the Capital District Mental Health Program's Mental Health Happenings:

The Mental Health Program and the Department of Psychiatry are opening a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at the East Coast Forensic Hospital (ECFH). This is for short-term stabilization of highly-agitated individuals, admitted to other mental health units with involuntary status, who are exhibiting aggressive and harmful behaviour towards others on their current unit. On April 1, 2011, the PICU will open for patients from inpatient psychiatry units in Capital Health. Referrals will be from the current attending psychiatrist to an ECFH psychiatrist.

The Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit is located in one of the Rehabilitation Units at the East Coast Forensic Hospital. The PICU has six single bedrooms, a spacious dayroom with lots of natural light, and a secure patio area. The whole of ECFH is specifically designed to create a calming atmosphere. The unit is staffed by clinicians who work effectively with a population whose specific needs include de-escalation of behaviours that pose a risk for harm to themselves and others.

The PICU will soon become a provincial resource - open to all the district health authorities across the province. Referrals will be made by a physician in the referring district, usually a psychiatrist, to a psychiatrist at the East Coast Forensic Hospital.

Please find attached the referral form and patient information handbook [actually a handbook for families]. [Links to these two documents are found below.]

If you have any questions, please contact James MacLean or Dr. Scott Theriault [460-7343; scott.theriault@cdha.nshealth.ca].

You are also welcome to call or email either of us.

Thank you.

Peter and Nick

Peter Croxall, Director
Capital Health Mental Health Program
464-4147
peter.croxall@cdha.nshealth.ca

Nick Delva, Professor and Head
Dalhousie University Department of Psychiatry
473-2464
Nicholas.Delva@cdha.nshealth.ca

PICU Handbook - March 2011

PICU Referral - March 2011


Photo credit

Unveiling of the architectural drawings for the new Community Living Initiative

Photographs taken during today's barbeque to unveil the architectural drawings for the new Community Living Initiative.

Please click on any photograph to enlarge it.










Danny Chedrawe (left), Vice-Chair, Board of Trustees, Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia, with Mary-Lou Crawley, Executive Director, Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia, and Dr. Nick Delva, Head, Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, and Chief of Psychiatry, Capital District Health Authority.


Vince Daigle (far left), a peer support worker with the Healthy Minds Cooperative, stands with staff from William Nycum & Associates Limited and Shauna Blundon-Price (centre), an employee of the Capital District Mental Health Program.


Dr. Ian Slayter, Clinical Director, General Psychiatric Services, Capital Health District Health Authority.


Barbara Hall, Vice-President, Person-Centred Health, Capital District Health Authority, talks with a reporter.




Susan Hare, an employee of the Capital District Mental Health Program, enjoying the beautiful weather.


Peter Croxall (left), director of the Capital District Mental Health Program, cooking hamburgers.


Denyse Sibley, on-air host of the FX101.9 Country Breakfast cooks alongside Robert G. Zed, Chair, Zed Group.


Laura Ankcorn (left) and Amanda Crabtree, two employees of the Captial District Mental Health Program, enjoying the barbeque.

An SSNS office window is located in the upper right of the above photograph (i.e., the window partially hidden by Denyse Sibley).

Also see:

Initiative aims to ease patients’ transition time

Capital Health staff invest in Community Living Initiative


All photographs by Stephen Ayer.

Mental health clinics work

A letter to the editor published in today's edition of The Chronicle Herald:

By Dr. Ian Slayter

While we agree mental health services are under-resourced in Nova Scotia, we disagree with this paper’s criticism of the direction taken by our community mental health clinics. Through these clinics we try to provide the best fit between the mental health needs of individuals living in the Capital Health district and the skills and training of teams of health professionals. One article focused on the model of care at the Bayers Road Community Mental Health Clinic. The same model is followed at each of our other community mental health clinics in Dartmouth, Lower Sackville, Cole Harbour, and Windsor.

We are pleased with the direction followed by all five clinics. The clinics have difficulty meeting the high demand for service, nevertheless they do a very good job in the circumstances.

Each clinic works as a team. Priority is given to people with more serious mental illness. Individuals see one or two clinicians — a nurse, social worker, occupational therapist, intensive case manager, or psychologist — and a consultant psychiatrist. Patients with milder mental illness, for example, an adjustment reaction to a stressful situation, usually do not need a team approach. Not everyone needs to see a psychiatrist.

The different professionals offer a wide variety of knowledge and skills. Some skills overlap, some are unique to a particular discipline. For example, only an occupational therapist can do an assessment of someone’s functional level, only a psychiatrist can prescribe psychiatric medication. It might be noted at this point that the community mental health teams work closely with family physicians and that they too can assess, follow, treat, and prescribe medications for persons with psychiatric problems.

Patients are usually referred by family physicians. These referrals are reviewed by a member of the team and the patient may receive a call to ask for further details. Patients are not assessed by phone. The initial assessment is done face-to-face to determine what services the patient needs. Sometimes the person doing the assessment will refer the individual to another clinician as we try to match the needs of the patient with a clinician who has the skills needed.

Our clinicians work within their scope of practice. This means that they assess and treat within the boundaries of their knowledge and skill, as determined by their training, experience, and the guidelines of their profession.

We consider it our responsibility to see the patients as soon as reasonably possible. To provide timely care to those in greatest need, we discharge patients from our service who are ready in order to see those who are waiting and whose needs are more urgent. For the best care of our patients, and not because of management dictates, we do work to see new referrals within the target times set by the Department of Health: urgent patients within one to seven days, semi-urgent patients within 28 days, and non-urgent patients within 90 days.

This team model of care, where the psychiatrist acts primarily as a consultant to the other clinicians, is the standard model followed by public clinics in Canada, the United States, Australia, and elsewhere.

We are looking at newer ways to make our care more effective and efficient to better serve our patients.

As with other conditions, many people’s mental illnesses can be managed successfully in the community with the assistance of a variety of health professionals. However, this model is not for everyone. Depending on the nature and severity of their illnesses, some people require acute inpatient or specialized care, periodically or over the long term.

Could we do better with more resources? Certainly. And every part of the health care system would say so. Through Community Mental Health Clinics such as the one at Bayers Road, we succeed in providing effective, evidence-based care throughout our district in a responsible and efficient manner.

Ian Slayter, MD (Psychiatrist), is clinical director of General Psychiatric Services for Capital Health.

Capital District Mental Health Program Community Teams (Outpatient Services): Wait List / Referrals / Wait Times -- July 2009

Please click on the image to expand it.

This and previous months are available by clicking here and using the pull-down menu entitled Mental Health Community Team Wait Times.

Also see:

Patient Satisfaction Survey Results 2007 (PDF)

Opening May 2007: Community Mental Health Services, Bayers Road

The Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia received the following letter, dated March 26, 2007, from Cheryl Billard, Program Manager, Community Supports, Capital District Mental Health Program:

"I am very pleased to advise you that in May, 2007, the Abbie Lane Mental Health Outpatient Department will move some of its services to Bayers Road Centre in Halifax. The new mental health clinic will open on Tuesday, May 8th.

"Opening Community Mental Health Services, Bayers Road is consistent with the Mental Health Program's commitment locate services, whenever possible, in the communities as way of improving access and client satisfaction. Moving more services to community-based locations will better enable us to build relationships with residents, leaders and service providers in those communities. It will be these relationships that give us the knowledge we need to tailor our services to meet the needs of clients and their communities.

"This is a starting point to fostering Community Resource Networks, networks of mental health and related services and supports which are defined by the needs of individual communities. The concept of Community Resource Networks stemmed from mental health strategic planning and the Health Minds Initiative.

"We appreciate the move to Bayers Road Centre may initially cause difficulties for some. Clients who will go to Community Mental Health Services, Bayers Road will be contacted and information on the location, parking and bus routes will be provided. I am hoping that you too will inform your members of the opening of Community Mental Health Services, Bayers Road whenever possible.

"We have provided a letter with the attached questions and answers to clients [please call the SSNS to receive a copy of the questions and answers]. We have also set up a phone line for clients and others to call with questions. The number is 473-4847. We will return messages within two days."

February 2007 Update on the Healthy Minds Initiative

From the February 2007 edition of the Healthy Minds Cooperative's The Blue Horse Chronicles:

By Amanda Crabtree, Project Manager

One of the main aims of the Healthy Minds Initiative is to increase access to appropriate supports and services. This includes everything from mental health information to mental health care to housing. I would like to highlight some examples of what we’re doing now to improve access. These will give you a sense of some of the new things we would like to start and changes we would like to make over the next weeks and months to improve access.

Last year, the [Capital District] Mental Health Program started a supported housing project through Connections Clubhouse. This project has now helped five clients to move from hospital to the community and ten others are expected to move to the community soon.

The Two Hundred Fifty Homes Committee, whose members aim to increase housing options for people living with mental illness or mental health issues, will be reaching out to more community organizations and agencies over the next month [contact has already been made with the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia]. They are interested in working with these groups to develop a plan to improve access to safe and affordable housing.

Community Mental Health is working with the IWK Health Centre, the Healthy Minds Cooperative, Halifax Public Libraries and other community organizations [including the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia] to provide mental health workshops in March and April. The workshops are free and open to everyone (for a schedule, click here). Registration is not required.

For more information on the Healthy Minds Initiative, please e-mail or call me: amanda.crabtree@cdha.nshealth.ca
or 460-7401.