By: Nercya Kalino, Staff Writer
One Stop Mental Health Canada is set to be introduced one province at a time within a year, starting with co-creator Chloe White and Erin Rebello’s home province, Ontario. The digital project aims to bridge the gaps for Canadians with marginalized backgrounds. The project stemmed from concerns over issues many marginalized people face with mental health in society.
This service is meant to help marginalized Canadians find existing resources that best match their background and needs.
The Peak conducted an interview with White concerning accessibility to mental health resources. White has a background in psychology from McGill University. Currently, she is working towards her masters in clinical psychology at SFU.
White’s background involves “research as well as some clinical work with people who have eating disorders.” She has also worked in social services with people who are facing homelessness because of marginalization, racialization, domestic violence, refugees, and intersecting forms of marginalization.
“One of the main patterns that I saw was that not only is there a shortage of resources but there is also a shortage of education on how to access the resources that do exist,” said White. She added while there are resources for the public many people still face difficulty accessing these services around Canada.
“There just isn’t necessarily a solution, there isn’t a platform to help you easily access and determine which mental health care service is best for you.” White noted some people have specific needs, such as Indigenous individuals who might prefer traditional healing methodologies.
This service platform differs from others that already exist such as MySSP, the platform for SFU students. White explained One Stop Mental Health uses the information collected through a diagnostic tool — which is a set of questions that help determine the sort of resources the user is seeking.
“These resources do exist, we are not claiming to reinvent the wheel, we are essentially trying to bring all these spaces together in one spot,” said White. She offered the example that for someone who is Black, they are not simply their race. They also exist as a mom, a sister, among other titles.
“Humans are comprised of our networks, we are not comprised of a single characteristic.”
White and Rebello acquired a grant for the project. They were awarded $9,000 from Press Start CoLab funding.
White shared the aim for One Stop Mental Health Canada, “I would love to create something that actually synthesizes all the resources that are out there and provide the people the opportunity to see what resources are out there for who they are.”
The current challenge White and Rebello face is the concern that people who are unhoused or don’t have technical knowledge could have a harder time accessing this tool. White also noted the lack of resources for those that have no consistent technological access.
“The issue of people who experience houselessness that don’t necessarily have access to consistent WiFi or consistent computers or phones, then that is more where we would have to give that some thought, I think that the good thing about our model is that you would only have to use the tool once,” White explained. “Hopefully for someone [who doesn’t] have access to a consistent connection and device, they could input their information into the tool once and get their results based on that.
“What I’m really hoping to do is maintain an open dialogue with the public, so a big part of our mission is and a big part of our launch process will be communicating with focus groups and individuals in the community to see what they want from our service,” White stated.
