Innovative Therapies and Community Programs for Mental Wellness

Looking for affordable counselling in Medicine Hat? Today on Bring Back the Porch Brian and guest, Celina Symmonds explore how Medicine Hat Family Services is making mental health care more accessible for everyone.

Mental health is a vital part of overall well-being—but cost, stigma, and long wait times often prevent people from getting help. Celina Symmonds, Executive Director of Medicine Hat Family Services, shares how their organization is breaking down these barriers by offering low-cost, compassionate, and accessible counselling services to the community.

Whether you're dealing with stress, anxiety, family challenges, or just need someone to talk to, this conversation highlights why counselling is for everyone, not just for crisis situations.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
02:51 The Importance of Accessible counselling
05:56 Innovative counselling Techniques
09:06 Programs for Children and Families
11:49 Community Outreach and Suicide Prevention
15:03 Support for Rural Areas and Caregivers
18:03 Funding and Accessibility of Services

About Medicine Hat Family Services
Medicine Hat Family Services has been quietly supporting the community since its inception in 1966. As a not-for-profit organization, they provide a range of counselling services, focusing on accessibility and compassion. Their mission is to ensure that mental health care is available to everyone, regardless of their financial situation.

Counselling is Not Just for Mental Illness
Many people assume that counselling is only for those with severe mental health issues. However, as Celina points out, counselling can benefit anyone facing life’s challenges. Many individuals seek counselling simply to gain tools for managing everyday stressors. This perspective helps normalize the conversation around seeking help, making it clear that it’s perfectly acceptable to reach out for support.

2. Affordable Counselling Options Exist
One of the primary barriers to accessing therapy is cost. Celina emphasizes that Medicine Hat Family Services offers low-cost counselling options that do not compromise on quality. Their counsellors are highly trained professionals who provide support at a fraction of the cost of traditional therapy.

3. The Importance of Accessibility
In addition to affordability, accessibility is crucial. Medicine Hat Family Services strives to reduce wait times, allowing individuals to receive help quickly when they need it most. This proactive approach ensures that those seeking support do not have to wait long periods, which can be detrimental to their mental health.

4. Specialized Programs for Specific Needs
Medicine Hat Family Services offers a variety of specialized programs tailored to different demographics, including children and families. Programs like "Kids in the Middle" support children experiencing family separation or divorce by providing them with tools to navigate their emotions and experiences.Targeted programs can provide the right support to those who need it most, especially vulnerable populations like children. Check the organization’s offerings to find programs that suit your specific needs or those of your loved ones.

Conclusion
Mental health care is essential for everyone, and organizations like Medicine Hat Family Services are making significant strides in providing accessible, affordable counselling. By understanding that seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness, and by recognizing the resources available, individuals can take proactive steps towards improving their mental well-being. If you or someone you know is struggling, don’t hesitate to reach out and explore the options available.

Hey we need your support. Like and subscribe to Bring Back The Porch Podcast

Transcript

0:00

Hey, this is Brian again. And I'd like to ask you to do a favor. We can't do this work without people like you. So if you can, please. Like, share, subscribe, tell your friends about Bring Back the Porch. It's funny because in our office, where we're so used to counseling that we don't really, we forget that sometimes. But I know, most of us see counselors, and there's really nothing to be ashamed of. I think, you know, when you go to the physician's office, you're not embarrassed to be seen there. And it's it's part of your health care to ensure that your mental health is also taken care of. This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. For 60 years, the medicine at Family Service has been serving people in Medicine Hat quietly. We want to make a little bit of noise about that. Joining me this morning is the executive director Celina Symmonds. Welcome to the porch. Oh thank you so much Brian I really appreciate being here. I was surprised when I saw that 1966 was the year that the Family Services was founded, and I'm not sure that I have ever heard of them until recently. Yeah, they've you know, the thing about medicine at Family Services, they've just really done their work quietly and with integrity and been able to to manage through 60 years of, of being a not for profit, which, which is, is quite an accomplishment really. The history of family services actually, that it was started in the city of Medicine Hat. So the city actually, housed medicine at family service. And eventually we decided that we'd be better off as a not for profit. And so we moved we moved on to be a not for profit in, in the community. And we're just so grateful. The, information sheet that you provided for me says accessible, compassionate, community based, pretty much says it all 100%. We you know, I think our main service is, is obviously counseling and we do low cost counseling. So, lots of people think that means less than counseling. What I would say to that is that we are counselors are the same level of trained as any counselor. It's just that we have, subsidized opportunities for people. And that's the thing that might be the biggest roadblock that people might put up. I can't afford to go to counseling. Well, if it costs $150 an hour to go to counseling, probably most people that don't have any kind of benefits wouldn't be able to afford that kind of cost. And so our organization tries to remove that barrier. We also try to remove the barrier of wait times as well, just to get people in as quickly as possible so that they can talk about what, what's, what's ailing them. Mental health is a big thing that we're talking about. A lot these days, just the pressures of everyday life. Have you seen more people come in looking for help? I think I think we're seeing more people. We're also seeing younger people. I think we're seeing kids as young as six years old coming in for counseling, and I'm not sure that's happened in the past. I think social media plays a big part in it. And I, you know, I'm just grateful that we still have an organization available to help people when they need to talk. How do people find you? You know it easy. You can just call us. You can go on our website. You can actually make an appointment right on our website now. So, you you don't even have to talk to anybody to get in, to see us. The other thing is, we're doing all kinds of groups and peer support models as well. And so you can get involved that way as well. One of the other obstacles that I maybe I'm just making an assumption that would be, in the way of someone seeking help is that, everybody's going to know. Yes. It's it's funny because in our office, we're we're so used to counseling that we don't really we forget that sometimes. But I know, most of us see counselors, and there's really nothing to be ashamed of. I think, you know, when you go to the physician's office, you're not embarrassed to be seen there. And it's it's part of your health care to ensure that your mental health is also taken care of. And it doesn't always mean mental illness. Sometimes it's just that you need a little tweak or you you don't. You have something that you're facing, that you just need a tool to manage that. And so our counselors can help you walk through that. They walk alongside people to, to take care. One of our counselors always says, you're in charge. Do you come with what you want to talk about? And that's what we're going to talk about. So it's the one place in your life where you can be completely in charge, is in your own counseling, what type of counseling services they offer. So we provide everything from peer support. So that would be somebody that's been through the same thing as you've been through. Where they can sit and talk with you about what you're going through. So for example, we have caregiver connections, which allows people who are caregiving for a spouse or partner or a child who has mental health issues. He can meet up with another person who's caregiving so they understand what you're going through. So we have that that opportunity. We also have group facilitation opportunities where we have courses and classes that you can be a part of. And so, kind of teaching new tools, learning about boundaries and all kinds of things like that. And then we have more specialized counseling, which is more of our 1 to 1 counseling. And, and even more specialized. Now we have eMDR and art, which are eye movement therapy specific to trauma. That is something that I just heard about recently. And I went, boy, that that I'm not sure about that. Explain how it works, though. Sure. We tend to laugh a little bit and call it a bit voodoo because they're not really sure. Why it works, but it does. We suspect that potentially, it's the same process that your brain goes through when you're sleeping. So when you're sleeping, your eyes move back and forth and, it that's that's your brain processing the day's events. What happens is, if you have an event that you can't process your brain can't process it, it just continues to collect information. And so everything becomes a trigger, as they call them. So if you run into a bear in the forest and you can look around and go, okay, I'm by this cave and I know if I just don't come by this cave, I won't see this bear anymore. Your brain can process that so it doesn't become a trauma. However, if the bear's in your living room and you don't know how it got in there, now, everything is scary. And your brain doesn't know how to protect you because it doesn't know how the bear got in, and it doesn't know why the bear was there in the first place. And so what eMDR can help you to do is, is actually process that event in your brain and change it so that your brain thinks of it differently. What is eMDR stand for? Oh no. Something where I move, I this is terrible. Eye movement reprocessing and desensitization and reprocessing are able to share how the the actual therapy is administered. Yeah, absolutely. So, you would meet with a therapist and you guys would decide together that that's what you're wanting to access, that that's the kind of service that you're looking for. And the therapist would ensure that you're ready for that type of therapy. And then you go into our office, we give you some tools on how to protect your brain and protect your thought process. And then you go through and it actually is literally the counselor does eye movements with you as you're processing the event. So you go through the event in your brain and the the therapist processes that with you. Okay. Some of your group programing sounds interesting to kids in the middle. I love that program. So kids in the middle is a program for kids that are going through separation or divorce in their family. And so what we do is we bring the kids in, we usually partner with bridges Family programs, and they teach the parents while we're teaching the kids, and we give them just some tools to think about separation and divorce and what that feels like in your family. We know, divorce is what is one of the biggest ones on the a scale that kids go through, which is for, adverse childhood experiences. But we know if kids can process those things that they're going to be okay. And so that's what kids in the middle does. And couples and family counseling too. That probably is a very busy one. It really is. I, I always joke that, like, having a third party in your marriage isn't always a bad thing if it's a counselor, because they can come in, because they can come in and and support you and, you know, really help you kind of go through what whatever you're facing as a family. You know, we we often talk in our, in our office about, you know, couples today, how do we connect. And and so we're even doing things like paint nights for couples and having date night out so that couples can come in and and learn a little bit about mental health, but then also spend some good time together where you're not on your phone and you're not watching TV and you're not kind of disassociated from each other. Play therapy for children and use that and sounds interesting. So all of our therapists are trained in play therapy. And so we we have a playroom in our office now, we just did a huge renovation. And so we have a really nice playroom and a sand table and all kinds of things so kids can go in and and work out their feelings through play, which is really the best way for kids. So we take children anywhere from six all the way, all the way up. So. Okay, so this is not like a role playing model therapy then. No, it's more, puppets and and drawing and art and things like that. Just different ways for kids to express themselves and actually relieve stress. And so, we know right now kids are very stressed. They have a lot of anxiety. They have a lot of depression. What might be missing is play well, what might be missing is, you know, running down down the street to the playground and that kind of thing. So we're trying to reintroduce that into community. We, recently, we're at a seminar where, Carl Andre talked about slow living. And one of the things that he said children need to do is they need to learn how to put the devices away, slow down, play outside, you know, take the time to enjoy life. And, that sounds like what that therapy helps them do 100%. I think I was at a, I was actually at a conference and there's a lady named Nina De Lacey, and she, she's actually, an eye psychologist, like, she's she's done psychology through AI. And one of the things that they found is that, the, the one thing that crosses the barrier between anxiety and depression. So anxiety and depression, exist in kids. The one thing that causes both is tick tock, believe it or not. And so, we see all these 1112 year olds on their phones playing TikTok and watching these, these scribbles, and then we wonder why they might have a little bit of anxiety or depression and that that can definitely play into it. Hard for them to understand the difference between reality and what they see in social media, because they maybe have never experienced reality. Well, even the the cognitive ability to understand critical thinking, right? Lots of kids don't have that ability at that age, or they don't have the ability at that age, even myself. Sometimes I get tricked. You know, I see the cougar coming after the baby on TikTok and I think, oh, oh my gosh, that's terrible. But the reality is that kids don't know the difference between what's real and what's not real. Plus, I mean, yesterday we all watched an airplane crash and two people die on social media and we all kind of scrolled by as though it was it. And we're almost becoming desensitized 100%. We are. Yeah. That's probably a defense mechanism. Yeah. Well, we're you know, I Jody Carrington always says, we're wired for connection. Our our world is wired for connection. Are people want to be connected to other people? And it's never been easier to not be connected, to isolate yourself. Another one of the points that you, put down to talk about this morning. Recovery College. Yes. This is it sounds interesting. It's really exciting. So we have a program now where we've taken over from Cmha and so they are funding it, but they're funding it for us to do it. Medicine out locally. And Recovery College allows you to take some classes about mental health. So we have everything from boundaries. We're doing one on estrangement, parent estrangement and child estrangement. Right now, we we take any kind of opportunity to, take a mental health issue, put it into a class and then invite people to come. And it's all free. So easy to access. You can just go online, search up Recovery College, you'll get Recovery College, Medicine Hat and you'll get an opportunity to be a part of that. Caregivers also are people who are carrying extra burdens 100%. So I think caregiving for somebody with a mental health issue can cause mental health issues for the caregiver as well. And so we've got peer support for that, which is great because you can talk to somebody who's going through it. I don't know how many times, you know, you have trouble with something and you find another parent who understands and they go, oh, that makes lots of sense. So that's where the peer peer support helps suicide prevention and community outreach. We have unfortunately seen an uptick in, suicides over the last couple of years, probably after the pandemic. Perhaps we did see an increase there. Yes. How does that work? So, this past year, we've hired Audrey Skoog, and she's amazing. And she does our suicide prevention. So there's a couple of things. One is we have actually a viral TikTok, account on suicide prevention. It's called mental health Matters. And so she does content on there about mental health. And so the idea would be, you know, you're you're up late at night scrolling, and this might just interrupt your thought for just a little bit, to, to ask you to stay another day. So our campaign is stay another day. We ask people to just take a minute and stop and give us a call rather than, moving, moving forward. On with suicide. We're in schools talking about suicide prevention. You know, it's funny to me that we're so scared to talk to kids about the stuff, but, you know, the kids really want to talk about it. And when we're in schools, the kids are the ones that are asking these great questions. And it's just been amazing, to watch, actually. Now, if you live outside the city of Madison, that can you still access your services 100%? I'm so excited. We just hired a rural coordinator, so she's actually going to be out in all the different rural areas, both in foremost Medicine Hat, Ralston Dunmore Ervin, we're going to be in all of those places once a week so that people can access 1 to 1 counseling in their own community. I can't stress enough that we need to realize that the number one thing, around suicide prevention and around mental health is that men in particular are not accessing these services the way that they need to be. Men are dying by suicide more often. Men over 40 is the highest, demographic of suicide, in our community. And so in order to do to fix that, we need to get to where men are. And oftentimes they might be out on the field or they might be, you know, in their tractor. Maybe they're listening to podcasts now and they're thinking, oh my gosh, like, I'm really struggling and I'm scared to do it. I just encourage you to pick up the phone and call. When people come to counseling, they really realize how effective it can be and how much it really does help. I can put myself in that spot and think, then I'll put up a barricade. They're going to judge me 100%. And and I think men, especially over 40, they were taught when they were children. Right. Don't talk about these things. Keep your feelings to yourself. Yeah. Don't cry. Gosh, don't cry. Like, what the heck. Right. And so I think, I think that trying to get to men where they are is what we need to do. And so we're trying really hard to do that, to get out to those places, especially in agriculture. Mental health is is a huge thing. I mean, we know right now farmers with the tariffs and all these other things, like they're struggling and they're struggling financially. They're struggling emotionally. And and they hadn't been taught how to deal with those feelings. Right. In fact, they've just been taught to push them down. And so our hope is that they can talk about it, but also understand we're not going to make you talk about anything. You don't want to talk about it. You're in you're in control. You get to decide. I always marvel at farmers. I always call them the ultimate optimists, because every year they put the seed in the ground. They invest all their money in that crop and have faith that it will pay off. I know it's it's amazing. It is amazing. And what would we do without them? Right. We would need, my gosh, we wouldn't be able to eat right. So yeah, I, I'm really grateful for our rural program. I think, it will make a big difference in our rural areas and give people just an opportunity to seek help in their own community. The other thing is to if if somebody is thinking, oh, I don't know if I want to go in my community to counseling, you can always come into Medicine Hat to you, and we're happy to see you there. But we wanted to be where people are. We talked about a lot of services here this morning, but where does the money come from to keep this going? Well, right now, we are very lucky to be funded through, the government of Alberta funds a lot of our, our programing, that being said, we know right now that the government of Alberta is also struggling. And so, we are probably moving more into the fundraising end of things in the next few years just to ensure that our services stay, local and, and stay available. So we do accept donations, where it was in the past, we've never really been a big fundraising. Organization. We try to kind of keep to our grants, but at this point, we know we're going to need the help for our community in the next few years. Okay. How many, counselors and staff do you have in the family services? We have four, registered, five registered psychologists now and then we have, five other outreach staff who are part of the Recovery College and the suicide prevention arm of our organization. So kind of an outreach department. And then in each department with our counselors, where are you physically located? We're downtown, three 25th Ave Southeast. So I always say, if you're in CIBC parking lot, you're looking at our door. So that's where we are. Okay. Yeah. Now people can find you on the web as well. Yeah. Dot MH family service.com. And your phone number (400) 350-4802 six. And you are here to help. We are here to help. Just give us a call if you have an idea about a group, if you're going through something and you're not quite sure if it fits, just give us a call. I mean, Mindy, you'll answer the phone and you'll. You'll get to know her really well. And she's easy to get along with. And and we make it pretty easy to make an appointment. Is there anything we didn't touch on that you wanted to bring up? Well, I just want to let people know again about the eight that it's $8 an hour. I want to make sure that people understand that we're not going to be looking into your bank account or not checking your finances. We don't expect you to prove to us how much you make a year. If you come in and say, I need counseling and I can't afford it, it will be $8 an hour. And if you can't afford the $8 an hour, come talk to me. I'll be happy to also, get rid of that fee. We just want people to understand there. We want to remove as many barriers as possible because it is so important to talk through these things. It's so important to talk to somebody about how you're feeling before it, before you go down a spiral. I think in my in my past life, I always talked about, you know, we need to catch people before they're falling in the river, right? Because unfortunately, we spend a lot of time fishing people out, getting them, helping them with services after they've already fallen down. What I love about Medicine Hat Family service is it's actually the way that we can catch people before they fall in the river. So if you've been through something, if you're going through grief and you're not sure if it's normal or if you if you've, you know, lost something, if you've if you're going through loss, give us a call because there are some strategies and great things that we can do to support you through that. So you don't have to be alone. And if someone listening or watching would like to donate, how do they do that? They can, go on our website and there's a button right on there to donate or give us a call. We're happy to come pick up a check or support you and give you a tour of our organization to let you know what we do. So help is always there. For those who ask 100% medicine that Family Services Executive Director Celina Symmonds thanks for the visit. Thanks so much, Brian.