Mental health

Veterinarians facing mental health challenges

Portico Staff — Wed, 28 Oct 2020 12:59:21 +0000

Pets need veterinary care, but practitioners may need some attention, too. Canadian veterinarians have higher stress, burnout, compassion fatigue, anxiety and depression, and reported more suicidal ideation and lower resilience than the general population, says a landmark 2020 study published by University of Guelph researchers.

The team surveyed all of Canada’s roughly 12,500 veterinarians working in companion animal care as well as food safety and agricultural support from February through July 2017. Some 1,400 practitioners (about 10 per cent) responded; just over three-quarters of respondents identified as women.

Prof. Andria Jones-Bitton

Overall, female veterinarians have higher poor mental health outcomes than men

About 30 per cent of women veterinarians reported a history of mental illness, compared with almost 27 per cent for men. Just over 15 per cent of women reported mental illness at the time of the survey, compared to just over 9 per cent for men – a key point, says lead author Jennifer Perret, a veterinarian now completing her PhD with Prof. Andria Jones-Bitton in OVC’s Department of Population Medicine.

“Overall, female veterinarians have higher poor mental health outcomes than men,” says Perret, who works part-time at the Guelph Animal Hospital. “We really need to focus on supports for women.”

The study says caregiver mental health can be improved through wellness interventions such as mindfulness and resilience training and improved workplace culture. The researchers also recommend management skills training, reduced working hours and more support services for veterinarians.

This winter, Jones-Bitton, DVM ’00, was appointed as director of well-being programming for OVC, including implementing training across the college curriculum.

She says veterinarians often find themselves caught between a desire to help animal patients and clients’ inability to pay for expensive diagnosis and treatment. “It’s important that we train veterinary students and veterinarians in the profession to build resilience skills,” says Jones-Bitton, whose research includes studying aspects of communication and other interpersonal skills. “We all need a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives.”

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Supporting first responders with traumatic stress

Portico Staff — Thu, 11 Jun 2020 15:11:50 +0000

First responders coping with traumatic stress are more likely to seek help from a life partner than from their organizations, U of G researcher Grace Ewles has found.

Those finding spurred Ewles to make trauma and PTSD resources more accessible for firefighters, police officers, paramedics, rescue workers, and their family members. She developed the website SafePlacetoTurn.com to provide avenues to peer and family support and to offer information on mental health services for first responders and trauma workers.

Events on the job can have a deeply traumatic impact on first responders, especially scenes involving children, and homicides or suicides, Ewles says.

“There are some events that can push an individual to their psychological and emotional limit.”

Grace Ewles

Many individuals attempt to suppress emotional reactions and cope by themselves, says Ewles, who completed her PhD in industrial-organizational psychology at U of G last year.

“But in the cases where they do seek support, more frequently they are seeking it from those more personal connections.”

In two surveys of public safety personnel, Ewles found stigma related to mental health difficulties and cultural factors involving public safety personnel led workers to avoid more formal supports.

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Northern Lights

Andrew Vowles — Fri, 11 May 2018 20:31:56 +0000

U of G Experts Track A Changing North To Improve Health, Environment And Food Security

Since arriving at U of G six years ago from abroad, Krishna Bahadur KC has never ventured farther north in Canada than Ontario’s Georgian Bay. But putting together his agricultural smarts and expertise in GIS and remote sensing, the geography researcher has looked well beyond Canada’s southern latitudes to gauge an unlikely-sounding prospect: farming across the North, from Yellowknife to Hudson Bay.

That forecasting project involving the Department of Geography is just one way that University of Guelph researchers are studying aspects of Canada’s North. Beyond climate-driven agricultural prospects, U of G initiatives in the country’s arctic and subarctic region range from cataloguing tiny but ecosystem-critical northern creatures, to enabling Inuit communities to track environmental and health factors, to gauging carbon release from melting permafrost beneath Canada’s sprawling boreal forests. For all their diversity, those projects are all monitoring effects of changes on northern landscapes, and how creatures – from mites to people – are being forced to accommodate changes that are worldwide in scope but particularly acute across the circumpolar North.

In the process, some of those U of G researchers have also had to adapt themselves to new situations. Computer scientist Dan Gillis first visited Canada’s North in February 2016. One day, he bundled up to go ice fishing with Inuit residents of Rigolet in Labrador’s Nunatsiavut region. How cold was it? Rock cod pulled from the hole and dropped onto the ice froze solid in about 10 seconds. “It blew my mind,” says Gillis. “We were definitely not in Guelph anymore.”

He’s part of an interdisciplinary team of University of Guelph researchers and graduates working with Inuit on a new computer app intended to help people weather the effects of climate change, ensure food security and address health problems. As conditions change in the North, those residents are experiencing more physical, social and mental health problems. “All aspects of their well-being are being affected,” says Gillis.

That’s what prompted Nunatsiavut residents to ask population medicine professor Sherilee Harper to help design and implement this app-based environment and health monitoring system. Earlier she worked on climate change effects on water-borne diseases with Nunatsiavut communities as part of an international project on climate change and health adaptation among Indigenous people. “Climate change is one of the biggest health challenges of the twenty-first century. The Inuit are on the front lines of climate change right now. They’re going to be the leaders and teach us,” says Harper, who teamed up on the project with Ashlee Cunsolo, a PhD grad of the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development (SEDRD) who is now director of the Labrador Institute, a division of Memorial University in Labrador. “The World Health Organization is suggesting the biggest health impact of climate change is going to be on food security and food systems. That’s not just an Arctic problem, it’s an international problem.”

Along with the community of Rigolet and the Nunatsiavut government, Harper, Cunsolo and Gillis are developing eNuk, a mobile app being piloted since early 2017. Users enter environmental information on their mobile devices to share with other residents and with government agencies and other organizations. For instance, a user might use photos or text to report unsafe ice or snow conditions or migration of food animals, along with an emoji to convey how they feel about the situation. In turn, public health officials might issue travel or safety advisories – all in less time and with greater accuracy. Stressing the importance of involving community members in the project, Harper says, “They’re super excited about it. This app belongs to them.”

In Labrador, U of G PhD student Jamie Snook is executive director of the Torngat Wildlife, Plants and Fisheries Secretariat in Labrador. Besides using eNuk to receive user data about landscape conditions, he says, the agency might use the app to share information about hunting licences or safety measures. “Once the app is built, there’s endless messaging we would use to improve communications with the community,” says Snook, a member of the project’s advisory board and former mayor of Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

In the Department of Population Medicine, he’s looking at how governance and co-management of fish and wildlife in the North affect the health and well-being of Indigenous people. For boards such as the Torngat Secretariat, the eNuk app can help in advising on everything from fish and wildlife harvest levels to conservation measures. Those topics are all affected by climate change in ways that the new app is intended to capture, Snook says: “Climate change is real and does affect people’s ability to travel in winter and their ability to harvest. That affects culture, which is all connected to public health.”

Gallery

Labrador’s Jamie Snook is just one of several U of G grad students enrolled in the Department of Population Medicine whose studies occur in their northerly home communities, including:

surveillance and testing for a disease parasite in Nunavut
providing safe, nutritious country food in Nunavut
human health impacts of natural resource developments such as the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project in Nunatsiavut

It was in northern Labrador last summer that PhD student Monica Young boarded the Canada C3 vessel that traversed all three marine coasts in 2017 to mark the country’s sesquicentennial. A member of U of G’s Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (CBG), Young spent a week between Labrador and Iqaluit collecting soil mites for her own research project and gathering insects for CBG colleague Jeremy DeWaard. This year, they will conduct DNA barcoding on those samples to identify and catalogue northern species.

Mites play a vital role in soil nutrient recycling, Young says, but biologists know little about their prevalence and diversity, particularly in the North. She hopes to help establish baseline data so that scientists may track climate change effects. “Being able to monitor environmental change is important, but if we don’t know what’s there to begin with, we can’t measure changes.”

Monitoring ecological change also drives a long-term project by integrative biology professor Andrew McAdam in southwestern Yukon. As part of the Kluane Red Squirrel Project in the territory, he studies the animals to learn about evolutionary biology, including how populations are affected by genes and environment. Among his projects, McAdam is looking at how the squirrels communicate and adjust to their surroundings. He expects his results will help in understanding ecosystem interactions not just in the North but almost anywhere on Earth. “Ecosystems are changing generally,” he says. “We need to know how organisms are going to be able to cope with those changes.”

Ask integrative biologist Merritt Turetsky about the effects of climate change in northern Canada. The North has seen “some of the most rapid ecological change observed anywhere on the planet, and that’s because of climate change,” she says. Over the past two decades, Turetsky has studied wildfires in Alaska and the Northwest Territories. Her studies connect climate change with fires that burn longer and stronger and that hamper regeneration of the boreal forest. She has also observed the effects of melting permafrost on people and ecosystems, from undermining of built infrastructure to the potential release of carbon long locked in frozen soils.

Along with researchers at U of G and elsewhere, she is now exploring the possibility of growing crops in the North. Various modellers have predicted that Canada’s traditional crop zones will move northward under global warming. At U of G, a recent simulation by geographers under the University’s Food From Thought project suggests that crops including wheat may eventually thrive in a broad belt stretching from northern Quebec and Ontario to the Northwest Territories and into Yukon. Team member Krishna Bahadur KC says further research is needed to learn about factors from precipitation and soil traits, to lack of farming infrastructure, to the potential release of carbon from newly cultivated soils. “Not all northern soils are high in carbon,” he says. “Maybe we focus farming on areas of low soil organic carbon.”

Referring to experimental projects in various communities, including the Northern Farm Training Institute in Hay River, Northwest Territories, Turetsky says, “The North needs economic opportunities. The highest level of food insecurity in Canada is among Indigenous households.” She says precision agriculture may enable farming while mitigating greenhouse gas release and other environmental problems: “We can’t just say no. We need to develop technology.” (In a separate project, environmental sciences professor Mike Dixon has looked at modular farm systems for growing crops in the North. He says use of controlled environment technology – akin to life-support systems envisioned for long-distance space travel – might help feed northern communities and offset the cost of importing perishable produce from the southern United States and Mexico.)

From health to biology to food security, changes in the North may seem far removed from the lives of most Canadians clustered near the country’s southern border. That’s changing as more southerners look to explore a more accessible Arctic aboard expedition cruise ships. For her master’s degree completed in 2016 in the School of Hospitality, Food and Tourism Management, Brittany Manley surveyed cruise passengers about their environmental attitudes and behaviours. Many participants said that, post-cruise, they paid more attention to environmental issues, from volunteering or donating money to supporting environmental protection initiatives to choosing more sustainable products. Now operations coordinator for Adventure Canada based in Mississauga, Ont., Manley serves aboard a chartered vessel during summer voyages through part of the Northwest Passage, along the Labrador coast and on other northern jaunts. She says passengers learn how Northern ways of life are changing: “They learn how impacts like climate change are affecting the North so much more than here in the south.”

Those impacts on Inuit lives and livelihoods are evident to the Labrador Institute’s Cunsolo. In 2013, she filmed the documentary Lament for the Land with the five Inuit communities of Nunatsiavut. “We did interview after interview of people crying and sharing very strong emotions and talking about sadness, loss and grief,” says Cunsolo, who is also an associated graduate faculty member at U of G. Last year, she published Mourning Nature, a collection of essays about ecological change worldwide, co-edited with SEDRD professor Karen Landman. “People talked about grieving for the environment and mourning nature,” says Cunsolo. “More people are having very real grief responses and asking how the idea of grief and mourning can change policy action.”

Besides film and literature, fine art has also served to document changes in the environment and ways of life in the North. Some of those impacts were evident in works selected for 150 Acts: Art, Activism, Impact at the Art Gallery of Guelph earlier this year. Drawn from the gallery’s extensive collection of Indigenous art featuring Inuit drawings, paintings and sculpture, the exhibition included pieces by Pudlo Pudlat, Jessie Oonark, Shuvinai Ashoona and Annie Pootoogook, among others. Senior curator Andrew Hunter, who joined the AGG last fall from the Art Gallery of Ontario, has visited the North through his ongoing work with Inuit artists.

He recalls a mid-winter visit onto the sea ice with Cape Dorset artist and hunter Tim Pitsiulak, who died in 2016. For a southerner like Hunter accustomed to thinking of the North as white and silent, that trek offered a sensory awakening, from their snow-squeaking footsteps to the ever-changing blues, purples and greys of sky, snow and ice. Upending preconceptions about Northern Canada is partly the point of the gallery’s collection, he says: “How can art address issues, share and build a dialogue – and not just show things but engage viewers? Art is both public and political.”

Those ideas resonate with other researchers, including Cunsolo. She says it’s important to gather evidence for making decisions that integrates Indigenous and western science. Paraphrasing one Mi’kmaq elder who likened the tension between western and traditional knowledge to travelling with an Inuit komatik sled, she says, “Sometimes you have to pull from the front. Sometimes you have to push from the back. Sometimes other people push and pull while you take a rest. You’re all moving in the same direction; the key is to know when to pull, when to push, and when to rest and let others take the lead. We all have different skill sets, different ways of understanding and experiencing the world.”

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Mental health matters

Portico Staff — Fri, 31 Mar 2017 13:15:16 +0000

How a U of G student and grad are using their personal experiences to shine the spotlight on mental wellness

On the surface, Tunchai Redvers and Garrett McFadden have little in common. She grew up in a small First Nations community in the Northwest Territories and struggled with her indigenous identity; he grew up in a middle- class family, playing hockey in a lakeside Ontario town. Today, Redvers is a graduate student, and McFadden is captain of the Guelph Storm hockey team and a first-year student at U of G.

The common thread they share isn’t obvious, but it affects up to 20 per cent of Canadian youth. Mental illness has touched both of their lives.

Now they’re using their personal experiences to raise awareness and make things better for others.

Breaking the stigma of “mental toughness”

He was already stickhandling roles as full-time captain of the Guelph Storm hockey team and part-time economics student at the University of Guelph. Now Garrett McFadden is devoting time to a new campaign intended to encourage young athletes to talk about mental health issues. It’s an initiative rooted in his brush with a teenage hockey player who took his own life several years ago.

McFadden’s Movement, a nonprofit foundation established last fall, is intended to teach young athletes about signs of mental health issues and strategies for addressing problems. Under the initiative, the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) player visits area minor hockey teams to discuss mental health.

“It’s important to make sure they know they have people to talk to and tools out there to help them,” says McFadden, speaking rink-side on campus.

Besides sharing information, he’s raising funds for the local branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) and for Wes for Youth, an online counselling and resource site for people with mental health issues. Jamie and Yolanda Cameron in Walkerton, Ont., established the program after their son Wes died by suicide at age 16.

That was just over five years ago, but the memory is still raw for McFadden, 19.

McFadden grew up in Kincardine, Ont., where he started playing organized hockey at age four. He and Cameron played in the Grey Bruce Highlanders minor hockey league, where they faced off against each other a few times.

[pullquote]“It’s important to make sure they know they have people to talk to and tools out there to help them.”[/pullquote]

Before Cameron’s death, McFadden knew nothing about mental health issues. Since then, he’s learned plenty about the topic — and about dealing with some of life’s ups and downs.

Drafted by the Storm at age 16, he moved to Guelph in 2014. That year, the team won the OHL championship, although rookie No. 27 saw little ice time. He missed much of the next season due to injuries. Last year, the team won only 13 games all year. Watching teammates’ reactions and behaviour as assistant captain during that bruising season, McFadden found himself learning about motivation, handling emotions and team play.

This year, the Storm defender was named captain. With a young team battling inconsistencies on the ice, that role has involved plenty of discussion with teammates, both collectively and one-on-one.

Thinking about their struggles made McFadden think about Wes Cameron. When Stephanie Coratti, the Storm’s community relations coordinator, met with a few team members last spring to discuss community engagement, McFadden broached his idea.

Under the new program, McFadden visits minor hockey teams around Guelph for hour-long talks. Typically he speaks to about 20 people at a time, although one session drew close to 50 people, including parents.

In his talk, he discusses the 2011 incident as well as struggles since then on and off the ice. Also part of the program is Jessica Schumacher, youth engagement facilitator with the CMHA. She provides information about teen suicide and mental health, including signs of stress, coping strategies and where to go for help.

Schumacher says McFadden’s combination of youthfulness and his status as a major junior player make him a role model for younger players, as well as a good foil for her own presentation.

“Garrett getting up to tell a story shows huge strength,” says Schumacher, who runs a CMHA peer suicide prevention and health promotion program in local high schools. “It also shows his vulnerable side, dealing with the loss of someone he knows.

“He’s able to talk on their level. It’s awesome to see someone they admire and look up to affected by mental health issues and still press on.”

That’s especially important for young athletes who often feel compelled to keep quiet about problems, she says. “You need to be strong, you’re not allowed to show emotion, and you’re supposed to keep things inside. It’s really important to reduce the stigma.”

McFadden gives about two to three talks a month — about as much as his hockey and school schedule will allow. He admits he was nervous about talking to kids about mental health. “What if I don’t make an impact?” he thought. “That’s what frightens me.”

He need not have worried.

Attending the talks, Coratti, BA ’15, watches listeners’ reactions to gauge how they’re feeling.

“A few kids were barely blinking. They were just eyes on Garrett — full attention,” she says. “If he can see that he’s helped one kid, that’s a success to him.” –ANDREW VOWLES

Signs that someone may be struggling

Suicide is among the leading causes of premature death in Canada among people ages 15 to 24, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA). Jessica Schumacher with the Guelph chapter of the CMHA, shares signs that someone may be dealing with a mental health problem:

•   Changes in appearance or mood.

•   Abuse or misuse of alcohol or drugs.

•   Withdrawing from family and friends.

•   Easily agitated or angry.

•   Making dark jokes about suicide or death.

Hope and support for aboriginal youth

Tunchai Redvers didn’t have access to mental health resources while growing up in a Dene First Nations community of about 3,500 people in Hay River, Northwest Territories. Like many aboriginal youth in Canada, she experienced feelings of isolation and witnessed the effects of substance abuse.

“Drug and alcohol addiction was very present and visible growing up in the communities and also within my extended family,” says Redvers, BA ’16. “This visibility made it really normalized, and I saw a lot of people suffering and struggling.” Her personal struggles led to a suicide attempt at age 15.

Recent headlines have brought national attention to the high rates of aboriginal youth suicide in Can- ada, with victims as young as 10. Redvers points to Attawapiskat First Nation in Northern Ontario, where last year a state of emergencywas declared due to the epidemic of suicide attempts on the reserve.

“There really is a crisis in Canada,” she says. “We were just so overwhelmed by it and tired of hearing about these statistics, so we decided to do something about it.”

In fall 2016, Redvers and her filmmaker brother, Kelvin, launched a national campaign called We Matter to provide hope and support to aboriginal young people. It models itself after the It Gets Better campaign for LGBTQ youth.

The siblings created short videos of aboriginal role models across Canada who beat the odds to not only survive but also thrive. Aboriginal icons such as comedian Don Burnstick, Manitoba politician Wab Kinew and CBC reporter Angela Sterritt are among those who have shared their experiences in We Matter videos, which are posted on the website and have received thousands of views.

“I still get emotional watching some of the videos,” says Redvers. “There has never been a space like this before, especially for young people, to have so many positive, strong indigenous voices in one public spot.”

[pullquote]“There has never been a space like this before, especially for young people, to have so many positive, strong indigenous voices in one public spot.”[/pullquote]

She says We Matter gives the aboriginal community a platform to share their stories of hope and survival while turning tragedy into possibility. The website also wel-comes video submissions from any-one who wants to offer messages of support to indigenous communities.

Redvers attributes some of her own identity struggles to the lack of aboriginal role models she had while growing up and the negative portrayal of indigenous people in the media. Having access to a site like We Matter could have made a difference in her life, she says.

Redvers eventually moved to Yellowknife with her father and got involved in sports and other extracurricular activities available in a larger city.

When she came to U of G, she was drawn to international development studies for its focus on social justice and global issues. She travelled to India as part of the Global Youth Network and to Guatemala for a study abroad trip. A three-month internship with Right to Play brought her to Northern Ontario, where she helped organize sports-based summer camps for First Nations communities.

Redvers credits the Aboriginal Resource Centre at U of G for its support while she was a student. She’s now pursuing a master of social work degree.

According to Health Canada, First Nations youth face a suicide rate that’s five to seven times higher than for non-aboriginal youth, and Inuit youth have some of the highest suicide rates globally at 11 times the national average.

“I think it comes down to a real sense of hopelessness in youth and getting to the point where you feel nothing is going to get better,” says Redvers. She points to the lingering effects of colonization and residential schools (her grandmother grew up in a residential school in the Northwest Territories), substance abuse, loss of cultural traditions and lack of support for those who need help.

Since its launch, We Matter has reached more than one million people on social media and has received national media coverage. Redvers hopes the campaign will start a conversation about mental health, and help guide indigenous youth who are struggling with suicidal thoughts and hardship.

“We try to provide that little bit of hope — that little bit of light — for youth to catch onto.” –SUSAN BUBAK

Where to get help

Seeking help for a mental health concern is one of the biggest hurdles for students, says U of G psychology professor Margaret Lumley. Students may blame themselves for not being able to deal with their own mental health concerns, and may fear being rejected or judged by friends and family.

“We know the higher the levels of internalized stigma that youth with mental illness possess, the less likely they are to reach out and ask for help or access services,” says Lumley. The University of Guelph’s Student Wellness Services offers various health and wellness services to students:

The Student Support Network run by the Wellness Education Centre offers drop-in peer support.

Counselling Services offers professional short-term counselling and therapy, as well as referrals to off-campus resources for those who need longer-term assistance. No appointment is necessary.

Health Services physicians can refer students to an on-site psychiatrist.

After-hours phone support is offered through Here 24/7 (1-844-437-3247) and Good2Talk (1-866-925- 5454).

Off campus, the Canadian Mental Health Association of Waterloo Wellington Dufferin offers local services and resources (www.cmhaww.ca).

U of G course provides student support

The wall of silence surrounding mental illness is beginning to crack, but the stigma hasn’t disappeared. University of Guelph psychology professor Margaret Lumley is helping students overcome the stigma by teaching “Mental Health and Well-Being,” a first-year course for students who have been diagnosed with a mental health issue.

“We know that in the university climate, the demand for mental health services has increased exponentially over the past decade,” says Lumley, who studies youth resiliency and mental health. “Universities across Canada have been struggling to meet that demand.”

Since 70 per cent of mental illnesses begin to develop in adolescence and early adulthood, when young people typically enter college or university, it’s a critical time for early intervention, she adds. Although mental health awareness is growing among students, “there’s still a long way to go,” says Lumley. Sharing their mental health concerns with other students who are experiencing the same challenges helps reduce feelings of isolation.

“Despite the difficulties they may have endured, they have so much to offer, sometimes because of those experiences,” she says.

[pullquote]“Despite the difficulties they may have endured, they have so much to offer, sometimes because of those experiences.”[/pullquote]

The course offers a supportive atmosphere for students to learn about themselves and each other through group activities and guest speakers, including upper- year students with mental health challenges. Topics include recognizing personal strengths, developing healthy coping strategies, and how to access mental health resources on and off campus and online.

Across campus, stress reduction and resilience skills are also built into academic programs, including initiatives in the School of Engineering and the Ontario Veterinary College, and other departments such as Athletics. –SUSAN BUBAK

Photos by Dean Palmer and John Ternan

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