Status of Women committee  In terms of youth, I actually used to work at a youth drop-in, Operation Come Home, in Ottawa. Having federal funding available that organizations on the ground can apply for is so important. When I was working at that centre, it was a drop-in centre, but we received funding thro

Status of Women committee  I just want to add to that the importance of having indigenous-led organizations within the communities. One of our psychiatrists, for example, was involved in a training program in which she trained a nurse practitioner who was already embedded in the indigenous community. She w

Status of Women committee  Yes. I would just reiterate that we should have funding specifically earmarked for mental health care and substance use. Within that, specifically for women's mental health care, we met with the minister and talked about having specific funding for perinatal mental health care, f

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. In some cases, it can be retraumatizing for an individual.

Status of Women committee  When we're talking about transfers, I think the program is available if the funding is available. If we don't have funding that's earmarked, then that program isn't going to be developed. For example, in Ontario we had funding for women's health research, which was drawn back. T

Status of Women committee  I would just add to that the combination of outreach and peer support and peer support training. Again, I used to do outreach into the youth shelters. Many of those youth were afraid to go and speak with their doctor about their mental health care. They were afraid to speak with

Status of Women committee  I'm just going to add to that. We also need culturally responsive care. We need ongoing opportunities for the education of frontline health care providers and frontline service workers to ensure that we're providing culturally responsive care. In addition, in terms of a gender d

Status of Women committee  I can just add to that by bringing back the attention to the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. When we're talking about some of these delays, we're talking about court rulings and court processes that are delaying things. O

Status of Women committee  Yes, just to add to that, a huge, significant issue right now is access to primary care providers and family physicians. Again, I was working.... I'm doing outreach in the shelters. Our psychiatric outreach team is a team of 10 staff—seven nurses and three social workers—and we h

Status of Women committee  It's absolutely about prevention, because the earlier we can intervene.... Like K-J, I was on an ACT team. The earlier we can intervene, the less likely it is that people are going to have significant, serious and persistent mental illness over the course of their lifetime. Eac

Status of Women committee  Yes, I can speak to that. I worked on the psychiatric outreach team prior to my work on the women's mental health team. It was quite common that somebody would be referred at the age of 17 and then they would age out before they even qualified for the youth services program. What

Status of Women committee  I can add to that. The Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative, which some of you may be familiar with, released a report in May 2021, “Time for Action: Why Canada Needs a National Perinatal Mental Health Strategy Now More Than Ever”. It identifies that we should have univ