Mental Health Amongst Newcomers

JASPREET

Improvements

One of my main critiques for PCHS is their website. Many of the links on the website do not work and most of the information is only found on documents that open up as PDF files, not on the website itself. This leaves a bad first impression and if I did not dive as deeply into the website as I did when learning about the organization I would find it to not be very professional or put together. Many other actors or community members that may be interested in the support this organisation provides, find themselves not as interested after viewing the website. PCHS also needs to add more statistics and examples of what they've done to their website to show and grow their influence. Although the organization says they work on helping newcomers settle in Canada, they have no services on their website, nor do they talk about the influence they wish or have made, which is leaving the impression that they aren’t really invested in this area of need. PCHS may have influenced mental health, especially amongst the punjabi community, but limited work has been done on newcomers. Next steps for this organisation would be to update their website with their progress and increase its usability. Also, to share how they plan on helping newcomers and what programs they wish to make available.

Role

Punjabi Community Health Services, or PCHS, is a non profit organization which started out as a community development project in 1990. They strive to provide services to the community whether it be social or health services. PCHS addresses domestic violence, addictions, mental health and family services. They provide counselling, development programs and awareness to issues impacting the community. The mission statement of PCHS is “to improve the quality of individuals, families and communities”, with a vision to empower diverse communities. They have newly started to also focus on newcomers into the community and helping them settle in.

Impact on Issue

In terms of mental health PCHS has grown greatly in the past three years. They have added two new programs to their mental health, In - Short Term Emergency Division (In-STED) and Early Psychosis Intervention Program. In-STED is aimed towards people 16 years or older, meant to offer support in a short term situations so that serious mental illness can be partly resolved in a timely manner, before the emergency sector at the hospital is needed. The Early Psychosis Intervention Program is meant to offer support to those with first episode psychosis, a severe mental disorder, along with other mental health concerns. PCHS runs multiple programs weekly to help those dealing with mental illness. As for specifically dealing with newcomers, a lot of impact does not seem to have been made. A way in which PCHS may be negatively impacting the issue is how they seem to focus greatly on only very severe cases of mental illness. This may push many people dealing with mental health away from using these services as they do not want to believe that what they may be dealing with is that serious and fear it becoming that serious. Mental health is a very sensitive issue and PCHS takes a bit of a structured approach to it, which may be scary to those dealing with mental illnesses.

JASPREET

Improvements

An improvement Indus Community Services can make to improve their influence on newcomers is posting the actual dates for their workshops on their website so it is easier for people to just drop by rather than having to inquire about them first. Along with the workshops, they can post transportation routes where they will be making routes to transport people to their workshops. More people are likely to drop into the workshops just to see what they’re like if all the information is priorly given to them. Also, maybe Indus Community Services can also create an online service for their english as second language learners, increasing the accessibility to the resources. With an online resource, more people can test the online version before attending classes. Pricing for these workshops has also not been included, although I am under the impression they are free, but clearly stating that will also gain newcomer interest as they don’t generally emigrate with tons of money to spend. Next steps for Indus Community Services is increased transparency about their services and communication with the newcomers.

Role

Indus Community Services, originally founded as Indian Rainbow Community Services, is a non-profit community organization that has been serving communities for over 32 years. Indus Community Services’ vision is “leaders building strong and supportive communities”. They strive to support communities through social and health services, with transparent, sustainability, inclusion and integrity and their guiding values. They are located within the GTA and started out as a small group of activists three decades ago, but now is an agency with six locations and over 100 members of staff.

Impact on Issue

Indus Community Services helps newcomers in several ways creating a positive impact. They support newcomers through employment services, english language training and general services. Indus Community Services runs workshops to help newcomers with resume writing, coaching for interview, skills assessment and so much more. Their services have helped numerous newcomers not only gain jobs, but feel more comfortable throughout the entire process. The english language training the Indus Community Services provides has also helped large number of newcomers through their part time classes, workshops and field trips with transportation assistance and child care available. Indus Community Services also provides workshops for skill development as well as personalized counselling and referral to other government resources. The only negative impact this organization may have on newcomers is how they focus primarily on newcomer families, versus students. Due to the limited focus on newcomer students, newcomer students may not feel as welcomed or supported.

PAVNEET

Improvements

If I were to criticize their practices for how they present and perform their organization, I would ask them to focus a lot on new international students due to them being a huge amount of Brampton population. Since we have a college located in our city of Brampton I highly encourage this organization to branch out by creation a specific section and support group who will focus on this end of the issue. A lot of the international students who live in Brampton attend Sheridan College who then come to this country without their families in order to receive an education. But however they are now dealing with mental illness due to their economic positions along with isolation by not feeling welcomed and accepted from the support they aren’t given. Therefore, by having this branch they will now have a support group who could possible speak Punjabi where they can they easily communicate all their needs easily. This support group should also help with the needs they have like finding a job, shelter, family doctor, and many other newcomer needs. This is how i’d critic this organization's practices in order to then focus on the international students end of the issue who are also dealing with mental illness due to them being newcomers as well.

Role

Brampton Multicultural Centre is an organization located in Brampton, which is run by diverse activists who strive to make a newcomer to the city, province, or country have the most welcoming environment in the area they will now call home. This organization was originally created as a non profit organization which serves deeds free of cost to its community in 1987. However, over the years it expanded greatly due to all the work which was done by diverse volunteers who helped facilitate all the newcomers by making them feel accepted, along with feeling welcomed. This organization strictly focuses on helping newcomers with a wide range of services and educating them about their new environment and what they should accept to witness in the society. Their mandates are “To enhance the capacity of newcomers to participate more effectively in our communities, to partner with other service providers and organizations to strengthen the response capacity of the settlement sector, and to work collectively with other community actors to facilitate better use of newcomers knowledge and talents in Canadian workplaces.” As you can clearly see all the mandates involve the collaboration with newcomers to reduce the amount of stress they may have when coming to a brand new environment. This organization has a very unique set of values which directly benefit all the newcomers because they are “Commitment to inclusiveness, fairness and equity, respect and value for diversity, commitment to collaboration and teamwork, respect for client’s privacy and confidentiality,and accountability to our clients, stakeholders and partners”.

Impact on Issue

This organization strictly focuses on having the most positive impact they could have on this issue due to all the work they have done and all the success they have gained. One of their recent success was that Honourable Eleanor McMahon, Minister of Tourism, Culture and sport, announced their construction and partnership to BMC and how they will now receive a grant of $592,000 from Ontario Trillium Foundation. They will receive this grant in order to then develop along with enhance all leaderships they have gained over time, to then increase their civic engagement with young newcomers who are in the age group between 15 to 24. By doing this they will also inform them on which challenges they will be facing in their new community which include unemployment, navigating the education system, the separation between relationship they have a home vs the relationships they have at school between both cultures, along with their values and practices they strongly stand against. This part of the organization branched out towards the youth side of the issue due to them having a section of the organization called “BMC Be the Change” and this part of the program has been running for years consecutively and it is planning on running for the next 3 years as well.

However, this organization has also branched out in order to serve newcomer syrian families. This branch of the organization is much stronger due to it being an actual progress and change that was implemented in the community in comparison to the BMC Be the Change which targeted the youth only and hasn’t served the community to this extent due to it being relatively new. Even though we are focusing more on international students mental health in this issue in particular, we also see the same issue being present between families, as well as middle aged individuals. Our targeted audience is the exact same as this organization due to it focusing on similar aspects of the issue. BMC has recently started to help Syrian refugee families who now call Peel their new home. They have a support team who is ready to serve all your possible needs in order for you to feel accepted and welcomed.They’ve launched a new volunteer assisted program who serve Syrians in particular since they have volunteers who speak Arabic, which then makes it much easier to communicate with one another when getting their need for assistance involved. These volunteers help Syrian families when registering their child in schools, finding an appropriate family doctor, correcting your paperwork, finding a shelter, and any other possible need for a newcomer. This is the huge positive impact this amazing organization has when dealing with newcomers and their needs due to all the actions they take in order to support this issue of newcomers and mental health. The actions they take help reduce the amount on mental illness due to a lot of the mental illness coming from the isolation of being in a new environment which have the complete norms to what a newcomer is most likely to follow.

PAVNEET

Improvements

If I were to criticize their practices for how they present and perform their organization, I would suggest this organization to focus outside of peel as well, since there are a lot of newcomers outside of this particular region. I love how this organization focuses on all the aspects of being a newcomer by providing them with services which really help them get involved within their new new community. However, due to there being less jobs available in peel region, a lot of newcomers then have to travel hours in order to arrive at their new job. Since a lot of individuals have jobs or run arrens outside of peel, they now have trouble with connecting to their new environment as well as having issues with connecting to their new services. Therefor, with this organization branching outside of peel it now provides equal opportunities and services for all the newcomers who live outside of the peel community. This is how i’d critic this organization's practices in order for them to focus on newcomers outsides of the peel region due to them facing the same issues as a newcomer in the peel region.

Role

Newcomer Centre of Peel (NCP) is an diverse multicultural nonprofit organization who strichly focuses on assisting newcomers in peel by helping them with their settlement and integration in peel region in particular. Newcomer Centre of Peel focusing on striving to assist any newcomer needs which may look like struggling in the english language, employability, business start up. It also has comprehensive settlement services which include programs that specifically benefit children, youth, women, adults, and elders. This organization's mission it to “Strive for equal access to opportunities, enabling immigrants to connect to the enduring values and principles of what defines Canada”. This organization also has a vision statement which “is to continue to evolve together as a community”. NCP has service available for newcomers in peel which are implemented in the most sensitive way in order to truly make newcomes feel welcomed along with accepted in their brand new environment.

Impact on Issue

Newcomer Centre of Peel (NCP) impacts peel region possibly due to all the programs and service they have available for reach for all the newcomer in the peel region. NCP has services counseling, looking for employment, coops and volunteering, english training, start a business, and community connections available for all newcomers to take advantage for inorder to reduce their needs by also reducing the amount of mental illness they have due to a large portion of mental illness coming from newcomers needs. Counseling is a service provided to newcomers which provides advice and referrals that regard specially to obtaining services which then assist their new setting in Canada. Coops and volunteering provides newcomers with all the assistant needed in order to then find employment which match corresponding to their education and skill sets. English training allows adult immigrants to learn the most international lainge being English that they will now be required to speak on a day to day basis in most if not every conversation. Start a business is another service which is available for reach due to it developing as well as starting a newcomers very own business in their new homeland Canada, with full support from NCP. Lastly community connection is a service with allows newcomers to connect with their local community by informing them what is available for youth, adults, and seniors for the use of advantage. This then allows newcomers to bond and strongly make their relationship throughout their local community very strong, which then gives the additional support reducing the feeling of isolation, not accepted, and not welcomed. This is the strong positive impact this amazing organization Newcomer Centre of Peel provide their local newcomers in peel which definitely reduced their mental illness due to the actions they took, which then took more than half the stress of a newcomer off their plate.

Reflection

PCHS and Indus Community Services both influence the work I do as they are also passionate about bringing a change to our local community through services. Organizations like these both inspire and demonstrate to me how something started up by small groups of people can slowly but surely create a big difference. After learning the services these organizations already provide I have decided to change a bit of the direction of my own project to further support these organizations, then compete against them for users.
I have actually met members of PCHS when they came to visit our class in April and the feedback I acquired from them was to make sure to understand the user before proceeding with actions to help them. This sparked the idea of creating a film of real life user personas for our project, which we are currently working on. As for Indus Community Services we are currently working on setting up a meeting with them to not only acquire feedback for ourselves from them, but also to give them feedback based off of the user profiles we are working on gathering because we would like to integrate them strongly into our project. The ideas I have thought of for our project were ones that this organization already has in action so rather than taking the time to start our own, I’d rather work alongside them and help them to grow. The hope is that alongside them we can launch a newcomer program specifically targeted towards students, or at least the program we work to launch can be support by their services. Organizations like PCHS and Indus Community Services have helped me better understand what I wish to do for my project along with how their support can not only benefit me but how I can support them in the process.