In order to be an official volunteer in the OSISS program, there are two important things that have to happen. You must be what we call medically screened. If you're in treatment, your therapist must say it's okay for you to even volunteer to do this kind of work. If we get that screening and we get all of the other checks and balances, then we bring volunteers into our program. And there have to be police checks and so on. Once we get all of that done, then we provide them with training by the mental health staff at Ste. Anne's centre. They receive three days of training, and it is official training, yes, before they start to work.
On March 20th, 2007. See this statement in context.