Covenant House Vancouver

 Yesterday afternoon I spoke to the customer service agent at one of our vendors. The women disclosed that she has a son that has been staying with us off and on for several years. She mentioned that she knew for years that just the drug & Alcohol counselling was not enough that he had mental health issues that were not being considered.

She said that since the mental health program has started at CHV that her son has been getting lots of effective help from us and the doctors from St. Paul's. In her words, she said that this is the first time that she has "seen her son" in years. Because of the mental health program, he's finally getting the proper medication and care that he's needed for a long time. Kudos Ron

If you are interested in learning more about Covenant House Vancouver and St. Paul's Hospital's Mental Health Project please see link below for a story done by:
Jaeny Baik, Reporter, The Early Edition CBC Radio British Columbia.

www.cbc.ca/earlyedition

Please click on the Tuesday Listen Again Icon the story is at the 02:13:30 mark.

Tom had been living on the streets, on the beach and in adult shelters before he first came to Covenant House. He had fled the family home because of conflict with his parents. Tom managed to get odd jobs now and then but was unable to keep them. He was a daily pot smoker and because of this was discharged from our shelter several times as he would often come back "high".

Though staff couldn't put their finger on it, there was something about Tom that wasn't "quite right". During his 7th intake into the shelter, one of our youth workers, Tracy, noticed Tom staring at the desk. She asked Tom what he was looking at and he said it was a bug. Curious, Tracy started asking Tom more and more questions and it became apparent that he was experiencing both visual and auditory hallucinations. He had never told anyone before. A myriad of delusions plagued Tom every day and he was using marijuana to quiet down his mind.  

Once this piece of the puzzle was assembled, Tracy got Tom a psychiatric assessment which confirmed that he had schizophrenia (a mental illness that causes hallucinations, distortion of reality, paranoia and disorganized speech and thinking). Tracy was then able to trace back the beginnings of Tom's family conflict to age 15, when his symptoms first appeared (75% of those with schizophrenia become ill between 17 and 25).

I have attached an article on disordered eating for everyone. In some way, shape or form regardless of what department you work in, we are all affected by disordered eating here at Covenant House. For the last year this has been a fairly hot topic so when I read this article I thought many of you might appreciate it.

Often the focus is on how little or how much a person is eating. Therapeutically this is not where the focus lies and it sometimes is confusing when quantity is not the primary focus for a client who has disordered eating. This article defines all the various eating disorders, the concerns and causes and it explains the process of healing.

I encourage you all to have a read and if you have any questions or feedback please feel free to leave a comment.

Cheers,

Tracy