The Estevan Police Service (EPS) hosted an information session on how to deal with mental health-related issues at the Western Star Hotel on May 29.
Donna Boyer with the Canadian Mental Health Association was the guest speaker, who led the participants through a 2 1/2 hour information session.
Community programming officer Monica Rae said the conversation was focusing on mental health from the place of how when people experience loss those unresolved problems could lead to events that trigger anxiety and depression.
“Much of the information that she gave was to empower us to overcome the symptoms of anxiety and depression because they are treatable conditions,” explained Rae.
The event was open to the community, and some people came to learn something new and share their personal experiences.
“We were pleased to see that there were people interested in attending and the group was engaged and had some good questions and provided some sharing and some stories. Overall it was a really positive couple of hours that we spent with Donna,” said Rae.
Boyer facilitated a similar event last winter in Oxbow. It was well attended and feedback was positive, so the EPS decided to start this conversation in Estevan as well.
“That conversation got brought to our office and in discussion with the chief and the deputy chief that was something that they wanted to get behind right away because as a police service we see the impacts of mental health challenges every day in the works that we are doing. And the more we can be supporting individuals in our community it’s only going to benefit us as a community and as a policing agency and as other agencies that are providing social services in our city,” said Rae.
Deputy Police Chief Murray Cowan, who opened the event, relayed to the participants that through his career mental health-related issues are something that he has seen increase in. He noted that it was something that the police were dealing with maybe once a week at the start of his career and now these are things they are seeing on a daily basis and sometimes even multiple times a day.
Rae explained that with mental health challenges being a widespread issue, for the EPS it’s important to educate the public and empower people to be able to help each other.
“It’s just a very important conversation for us to be having at a community level. Sometimes we have missed opportunities, as we often don’t recognize our ability to provide informal support to people experiencing some mental health challenges. And certainly individuals will require some intensive and specialized support, but there is often an opportunity for us to provide informal support to one another,” said Rae.
The information session went well, and Rae hopes it will be just the beginning of a broader conversation.
“The feedback was positive and people said they gained something… It is a conversation we would like to continue… The more people we reach the more positive impact we can have in this type of discussions. We are pleased that we had some people come out and express interest and share some of their experiences and ask some important questions. It’s a start,” said Rae.
