Good morning, everyone. Greetings from southeast Alberta. A big thank you for the invitation and opportunity to speak to you today about a very important topic that usually receives very limited attention.
Again, my name is Robert Johnston. I live in the southeast corner of Alberta in a rural area where, along with oil and gas activities, farming and ranching contribute significantly to our local and provincial economies. Similar to many areas across the country, many of these farms and ranches continue to operate intergenerationally and have been in the families for many generations.
On a personal level, I have enjoyed the opportunity to be involved in agricultural activities, from a family background as well as from growing crops and raising livestock on a small scale over the past 25 years. I mention this because partaking in this agricultural lifestyle and being embedded in a farming and ranching community has brought me a deep appreciation of the challenges facing agricultural producers. Although I am a farmer and rancher at heart, I am a clinical psychologist by trade, and I have been honoured to provide front-line and managerial mental health services to producers in our rural southeast Alberta area over the past 30 years.
In my current role as manager with our Alberta Health Services' provincial addiction and mental health community services portfolio, I've had a recent opportunity to develop and provide crisis support and follow-up services for ranchers facing the Jenner bovine TB situation. Individual, family and community supports were offered throughout this very difficult period.
In response to an invitation to present the producer mental health perspective on the TB event, I interviewed ranchers and farmers and presented the results of this qualitative study at a provincial veterinarian conference in 2017. The producers provided valuable and much-needed information about their experiences, as well as recommendations on how CFIA can build a people factor into future disease management processes. I'm currently having discussions with CFIA and Alberta Beef Producers regarding these recommendations, and there's optimism that policy changes may be made to consider the mental health aspect and supports required in situations that may include eradication of entire herds with multi-generational bloodlines.
In addition to crisis support services, our AHS community mental health mandate includes screening, assessment and treatment for children, youth and adults challenged with moderate to severe mental illness. This includes addictions counselling.
I'm not going to comment on the many challenges that our agricultural producers face that often result in significant stress and mental health concerns. I'm sure that you will hear from many about financial, social and weather issues, just to mention a few.
I would like to share a few brief observations as background to some recommendations for possible strategies toward improvements to agricultural mental health supports.
The stigma of seeking help for mental health concerns is well known and for many reasons that could be pondered and discussed at length, it is probably entrenched even deeper in the agricultural subculture. There are many valuable mental health supports available. However, like many groups, for example, seniors and immigrants, these services are not consistently accessed when referrals are made. I respectfully suggest consideration of the following recommendations to start to address mental health concerns:
The first is to rebrand through coordinated initiatives with agricultural producer groups the term “mental health services” as “agricultural wellness supports”. We are already doing this successfully through other initiatives in schools and within immigrant communities. An example would be to say, “You do a green-light maintenance inspection on your green farm equipment. As part of your personal business plan, please consider a green-light inspection on your farmer-rancher wellness.” My apologies to John Deere.
The second is to further develop the access door to available mental health services through ministry of agriculture funding, to be partnered, promoted and administered through producer associations at the provincial and national levels, for example, Alberta Beef Producers, Canadian Cattlemen's Association, or dairy as well as other sectors.
The third is to partner also with the ministries of health in the same way that the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Children's Services have done to develop more accessible, pertinent and user-friendly access to mental health services. These initiatives should include prevention and promotion, and community presentations tailored to producers that are offered in their language. This would also provide an access point for referrals for more urgent mental health concerns. Basic information would be provided with regard to stress and coping, warning signs regarding more serious issues, for example, mental illness and suicidal risk, and, if required, where and how to access help on a crisis and long-term basis. Further development of producer-friendly online materials should also be made available.
Community assessment and treatment services should be made available on an outreach basis, with trained mobile practitioners being deployed as requested, at locations outside the usual in-town clinics and hospitals that are currently in use. Counselling services for non-clinical concerns, such as stress, coping and relational issues, should receive funding, since these are not typically funded through health. This support can often prevent the emergence of more serious longer-term clinical mental health concerns.
Crisis support services need to be readily accessible and responsive to the unique needs of specific sectors of the agriculture community. Many initiatives are in place in some areas, but there needs to be a more strategic coordinated effort to inform producers of this support and to promote access.
Throughout the ministry, initiatives and policies to recognize the need for producer support should be considered, as is currently happening with CFIA. Since the challenges and concerns of Canadian agricultural producers can be unique to specific sectors, another study should be considered to better understand how supports can be developed to more effectively address a diverse array of issues and needs.
A final and very important consideration is to make sure to invite and involve producers to inform and participate in the development of any future mental health support initiatives. This could involve the Ministry of Agriculture sponsoring town hall meetings to receive feedback on how to move forward with new approaches to individuals and families very much in need of services.
My sincere thanks for the invitation to provide this information. Should you desire further clarification or discussion, I'm happy to provide that during the Q and A period.