Drawing from the voices of people released from custody during the pandemic and providers who adapted services to continue to provide support to them, the panel will highlight how the pandemic has disrupted the service delivery landscape of mental health and/or substance use for this population. The panel will also share their ideas on what could be done better during the pandemic and for future health crises. The panel will consist of community-based researchers, service providers, and peer researchers.
PRESENTERS
Dr. Flora Matheson, St. Michael’s Hospital and University of Toronto
Dr. Angela Mashford-Pringle, MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions and University of Toronto
Kelly Potvin, Elizabeth Fry Toronto
Nikoleta Curcin, WriteON
Katie Almond, Co-Chair, Provincial HSJCC
Heather Mason, St. Michael’s Hospital
BIOS
Dr. Flora Matheson leads the Justice and Equity Lab located at MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions, St. Michael’s Hospital. Her research is focused on solutions to reduce social and health inequities among people experiencing problem gambling and imprisonment; solutions that are built with and for these communities. As a Sociologist she uses a gender lens and social determinants of health approach to enact change.
Dr. Angela Mashford-Pringle is an Assistant Professor and Associate Director for the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health, Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. She is an urban Algonquin woman from Timiskaming First Nation but was raised and lives in Toronto. Her research is at the intersection of Indigenous health and education with a focus on culture and land-based learning. She has worked in Indigenous early childhood development through policy and curriculum development for many years. Dr. Mashford-Pringle is the Director for the Collaborative Specialization in Indigenous Health and the Master of Public Health Indigenous Health field. She is currently the only Canadian and first Indigenous board member for the Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) organization in the U.S. She is the Founding Editor of the Turtle Island Journal of Indigenous Health (TIJIH). She has held leadership and administrative positions at Peel District School Board, St. Michael’s Hospital’s Well Living House, and Centennial College as the inaugural Aboriginal Programs Manager. Angela worked for more than 10 years at Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada managing a variety of Aboriginal social programs like Aboriginal Head Start Urban and Northern Communities.
Kelly Potvin is the Executive Director of Elizabeth Fry Toronto. She is an experienced leader with over 25 years of experience in the non-profit sector, working primarily with at risk women and individuals with mental health and addiction issues. She is also the President of the Board for Thunder Woman Healing Lodge Society, an organization run by and for Indigenous women in conflict with the law. As a Two Spirited person, Kelly is committed to work that takes a gendered lens towards anti-racism and anti-oppression. She has been an advocate for equity and social justice throughout her career, both as a frontline worker and an executive director.
Nikoleta Curcin graduated from the University of Toronto in 2012 with an Honors Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature. She is a consumer survivor and a recent graduate of Toronto’s Drug Treatment Court program. Upon becoming an alumni of the program in December of 2020, she started volunteering with WriteON, a prisoner rights organization that seeks to empower incarcerated individuals through information and knowledge sharing. Nikoleta is currently working as a consultant on a research project with the Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario Division and a Peer Researcher with the Justice and Equity Lab at St. Michael’s Hospital. She intends to pursue further academic studies and is currently working on a screenwriting project during her spare time.
Katie Almond has been working in the criminal justice system for 36 years, 32 of which have been as a Probation and Parole Officer with the Ministry of the Solicitor General. For 19 years, she has worked with a client population that is marked by poverty, homelessness, mental illness, physical and developmental disabilities, and polysubstance use. Katie has been involved in the development of extensive community networks and collaborative initiatives. She is the Co-Chair of both the Downtown Toronto, and Provincial Human Services and Justice Co-ordinating Committees. In addition, she is a member of member of the Board of Sound Times Support Services; CMHA Toronto; the Community Justice Court Initiative Committee (with MAG); the CAMH Constituency Council; and a number of research projects examining the impact of COVID-19 on correctional clients. Katie possesses a Bachelor’s degree in psychology (Honours) and a Master’s Degree in Education. She is a person with lived mental health experience, who is committed to effecting positive change for her clients, and colleagues.
Heather Mason is a formerly federally imprisoned woman who has been assisting criminalized women as a feminist advocate with the organization Strength in SISterhood Society (SIS). Through SIS, she has worked on various systemic issues affecting women in prison, including segregation, strip-searching and conditions of confinement during the pandemic.
By creating tailored and innovative community justice models that meet individuals where they are at and respond to community needs, Ontario’s Justice Centre Pilots offer a transformative approach to criminal justice. This presentation will be an in-depth discussion about Ontario’s four Justice Centre Pilots, how they have been uniquely developed by and for the communities they serve, and how they each support the needs of specialized populations within their community. The design of each Pilot site has been guided by a participatory design process with local service providers, police, justice system participants, municipalities, and First Nations leadership and Indigenous organizations. The London Pilot provides targeted supports for young adults aged 18-24 to help them avoid and exit the criminal justice system and reconnect with school and work. The Toronto Northwest Pilot will focus on the needs of racialized youth aged 12-17 and aims to decrease high levels of community violence and its traumatic impact on young people and their families. In Downtown East, the Pilot will serve adults with multiple risk factors, including insecure housing, mental illness, developmental disabilities, substance use disorders and/or concurrent disorders. In Kenora, the model will include parallel criminal and Indigenous restorative justice processes with the aim of increasing referrals to existing Indigenous restorative justice programs, reducing bail and remand populations and providing multi-sectoral trauma-informed supports delivered by Indigenous organizations to youth and adults, including Indigenous women and girls who have experienced or witnessed trauma or violence.
PRESENTERS
Dayna Arron, Provincial Justice Centre
Holly Loubert, Provincial Justice Centre
Miriam Henry, Toronto Northwest Justice Centre
Kaffie Abdirashid, Toronto Northwest Justice Centre
Keim Jacobs, Toronto Northwest Justice Centre
Wanda Marshall, Kenora Justice Centre
BIOS
Dayna Arron is the Executive Director of Justice Centres at the Criminal Law Division, Ministry of the Attorney General. She has spearheaded the Ministry’s Justice Centres program since its inception in 2017 and has been the driving force behind innovating Ontario’s criminal justice system by implementing a new court model premised on the co-location and integrated service delivery of justice, health and social services. She spent over a decade prosecuting as an assistant Crown Attorney; served as the Crown Lead in Inmate Partner Violence; and acted as counsel to the Assistant Deputy Attorney General at MAG. She will speak about the genesis of the Justice Centre initiatives as well as her long-term vision for how Ontario’s Justice Centres will affect broader justice system transformation, including the participatory design process in support of the Kenora Justice Centre pilot.
Holly Loubert is counsel at Justice Centres. She has over a decade of appellate prosecutorial experience and has appeared at every level of court in Ontario and the Supreme Court of Canada, with regular appearances at the Court of Appeal for Ontario. She has significant experience working with collaborative court models, most recently acting as the Deputy Director of Inmate Appeals at the Crown Law Office – Criminal. Most recently, she has been working closely on the development of the Toronto Downtown East Justice Centre.
Miriam Henry is the Crown Lead at the Toronto Northwest Justice Centre. She is a leading Youth Criminal Justice Act expert with over 20 years of experience as an Assistant Crown Attorney with the Criminal Law Division at the Ministry of the Attorney General. She will speak first-hand about how the Justice Centre is changing the way justice services are delivered in the Toronto Northwest community.
Kaffie Abdirashid is currently counsel working with the Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law, a leading non-profit legal aid clinic that specializes in providing select legal representation to low-income children and youth who are in conflict with the legal, education, social service or mental health systems. She is currently acting as the Education Advocate at the Toronto Northwest Justice Centre to help youth reconnect with school in partnership with the Toronto District School Board and MEDU community-based programming including Black Graduates and Urban Priority High-Schools Program.
Kemi Jacobs is the Executive Director of the Delta Family Resource Centre, a grassroots, non-profit, community-based agency providing a wide range of targeted programs, services and activities to isolated and marginalized groups, including parents, children, youth, seniors and Black communities. She has over 20 years of community involvement, having been a leader in the public and non-government sectors – including serving as the President of the Canadian Council for Refugees, Executive Director of CultureLink Settlement Services, Chairperson of the National Anti-Racism Council of Canada, Director of Housing at Toronto Community Housing and Chair of the Board at CAFCAN. She will be speaking about the new culturally-relevant programming Delta Family and partners have created to help youth at the Toronto Northwest Justice Centre develop strong and positive racial identities.
Wanda Marshall is a Community Justice Coordinator at Kaakewaaseya Justice Services, which operates under the umbrella of Grand Council Treaty #3 and provides a plethora of community-based supports including youth re-integration, Indigenous bail verification & supervision, Gladue report writing, Gladue aftercare, and Indigenous justice liaison and support coordination services.
Research has demonstrated that organizations derive clear benefits when they involve persons with lived experience (PWLE) in high level planning and decision-making. Organizations incorporating PWLE are enabled to offer services that are more culturally appropriate, efficient, focused, and sustainable. Lived experience knowledge produces understandings of marginalization, discrimination and oppression, and provides shared insights into changes in social status or inclusion, relationships, loss, and employment as a result of diagnosis or incarceration.
The Provincial HSJCC draws frequently upon the expertise and resources of PWLE in the human services and justice sectors in HSJCC work at the Provincial, Regional, and Local levels. In 2019, the Provincial HSJCC struck an Advisory Committee to oversee the development of a resource that would support the improvement of meaningful engagement of PWLE across the HSJCC Network. This presentation will provide an overview of this resource, which was informed through surveys and consultation with the HSJCC Network.
PRESENTERS
Valerie Danieli, PWLE Advisory Committee
Trevor Tymchuk, PWLE Advisory Committee
Tasha Rennie, HSJCC Secretariat
BIOS
Valerie Danieli completed a Masters in History specializing in racism and sexism in turn of the century Latin America as well as the use of media in propagating these systems. Her lived experience with the mental health system, along with growing up in a subsidized housing community, were invaluable to her role as a front-line representative for Toronto Community Housing. Valerie currently devotes her time to transitioning mothers out of the shelter system and into their new homes in Scarborough. She is a contributing member of the Downtown HSJCC, the Scarborough HSJCC, in addition to the Anti-Racism and Persons with Lived Experience Advisory Committees.
Trevor Tymchuk is a person with lived experience of the mental health and justice systems. He first became involved with the HSJCC in 2000 while living in the Northeast Region. He currently serves as Chair of the Niagara Local HSJCC. Actively involved with the Provincial HSJCC, Trevor chairs the Communications & Knowledge Exchange Committee, and co-chairs the Conference Planning and Persons with Lived Experience Advisory Committees. He also provides advice to the Cannabis and Drug Treatment Court Research Project. Trevor maintains a library of research resources at humanservicesandjustice.ca
Tasha Rennie is the Network Engagement and Communications Officer for the HSJCC Secretariat. In this role, Tasha has been the lead support for the work of the PWLE Advisory Committee since its inception. Tasha has a background in digital communications and international development.
Presenters will share their collaborative experience building the OPP Crisis Call Diversion (CCD) program. CCD began as a pilot program that has not only continued, but expanded to other regions of the OPP. The program embeds mental health crisis workers within the OPP Provincial Communications Centres to offer an additional layer of support for callers experiencing crisis. Similar to communication operators, crisis workers are set up with their own system within the Provincial Communications Centre. Calls come into police through various 911, non-emergent and administrative lines. Where it is identified that a caller is experiencing a situation of acute distress and cannot manage with their usual coping mechanisms, CCD services are offered to the caller and, when accepted, the communications operator is able to ‘conference’ in the crisis worker to carry on the service to support. This service provides opportunity to:
– offer immediate de-escalation and support to those experiencing a mental health crisis
– divert non-emergent police mental health-related calls for service, where alternative services may be more appropriate in low-acuity situation
– decrease the volume of non-emergent mental health-related calls for service for the OPP
– reduce the use police personnel for non-emergent responses when appropriate
– help individuals experiencing mental health crises by offering better pathways to meet their needs
The processes of how the calls are addressed, related training, privacy and risk management considerations, data and evaluation, along with the partnership experience through this 24/7 service delivery initiative will be shared in the presentation.
PRESENTERS
Lori Hassall, MSW, RSW, CMHA Elgin-Middle Sex Branch
Lisa Longworth, CYW, B.A. SDS, Ontario Provincial Police, Community Safety Services
BIOS
Lisa Longworth holds a diploma in Child and Youth Work from Mohawk College, a B.A. in Social Development Studies, a General Social Work Certificate and a Certificate in Social Work – Child Abuse from the University of Waterloo. Prior to joining the OPP in 2017, Lisa worked for 27 years in social services. She has worked across sectors including child and adult mental health and addictions, corrections, therapeutic recreation, education and healthcare. She was in the role of Senior Social Worker in a primary care clinic from 2011 to 2017 when she joined the OPP.
Lisa applies these experiences to support the delivery of the OPP Mental Health Strategy and related work, including support to mobile crisis response services, police-hospital transitions, and training initiatives. Lisa is a member of the Community Safety Services support team and provides subject matter expertise to the Healthy Workplace Team, Community Safety Services operations and initiatives teams, and the Opioid Working Group. Lisa is also the Project Manager for the Crisis Call Diversion Program.
Lori Hassall is the Director of Crisis and Short-Term Interventions at CMHA Elgin Middlesex. With over 20 years of mental health experience in hospital and community, Lori is passionate about collaborating to create innovative programs to support community needs. Police partners in the London/Elgin and Middlesex region can attest that Lori is an integral part of any critical partnership involving forward thinking initiatives involving mental health crisis programming in the area. She is always eager to support new and creative ideas, and she and her team have been a driving force behind the success of the Crisis Call Diversion program.
Family members and friends of victims of homicide violence face mental, physical, and spiritual health challenges as they learn to survive without their loved one. Research has historically focused on perpetrators and victims of homicide violence and has neglected to examine the post-homicide experiences of surviving family members and friends. The scarcity of research further perpetuates disparities in mental health and leaves policy makers and practitioners with little data to develop culturally responsive and evidenced-based interventions.
The CRIB, CMHA Ontario and community partners collaborated to engage with Indigenous, African, Caribbean, Black, and Racialized survivors of homicide victims and their service providers across the province. The presentation will share results from a multi-year project which includes three phases, (1) assessment, (2) research implementation and analysis, and (3) educational training and development of policy. This presentation will advance participants’ understanding of the needs of this population, identify promising culturally responsive approaches to practice and highlight policy recommendations designed to support the needs of survivors of homicide victims.
PRESENTERS
Uppala Chandrasekera, Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario (CMHA Ontario)
Tanya L. Sharpe, The Centre for Research & Innovation for Black Survivors of Homicide Victims (The CRIB)
BIOS
Uppala Chandrasekera, M.S.W., RSW, is the Director of Public Policy at CMHA Ontario, where she provides leadership in six program areas. Through her research, published writings and work in the community, Uppala examines the impact of the lived experience of discrimination and racism on the health, mental health and wellbeing of marginalized populations.
Dr. Tanya Sharpe is an Associate Professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto and the founder of the Centre for Research & Innovation for Black Survivors of Homicide Victims (The CRIB). Her research examines coping strategies of Black survivors of homicide victims for the purpose of developing culturally responsive approaches to surviving the aftermath of homicide.
Reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada means restoring a degree of control in decision making to Indigenous organizations, and to acknowledge their authority in certain matters. I will go over some principles of Indigenous justice and efforts to implement them in a substantial way and prevent them from becoming window dressing for the same system. I will also go over how Indigenous advocates and their friends in the Canadian justice system, including Crown attorneys and justices, can work together to assert the autonomy of Indigenous court programs and processes.
PRESENTERS
Steven Martin, Friendship Centre
BIO
Steven Martin is the Indigenous court worker for Nogojiwanong Friendship Centre in Peterborough. He has worked with various high-risk populations, including street youth in Vancouver, LGBT+ youth engaged in the sex trade in Toronto. He has also worked as the mental health worker for the Mobile Crisis Intervention Team (MCIT), a partnership with Peterborough Police. Steven is the initiator and editorial committee chairperson of The River Magazine, a publication written by individuals living on a low income in Peterborough.
Justice-involved and high-risk youth often present with histories of trauma which impact emotional regulation and contribute to high-risk behaviours, justice involvement, and mental health difficulties. DBT is a cognitive-behavioral intervention established for youth experiencing multiple problems such as self-injury, substance use, anger, and unstable relationships. Traditional DBT programs are intensive and long-term making them difficult for this population to access.
This presentation outlines the development of the program and the evaluation results associated with a DBT program for use with justice-involved and high-risk youth, as well as for virtual use amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Youth completed self-report measures pertaining to their experience of trauma symptoms, substance use, self-injurious behaviours, and self-efficacy. Youth and facilitators also shared their experiences and satisfaction with the program. The results suggest that a shortened, modified, and virtual version of DBT can be successfully implemented and can produce improvements for this population.
PRESENTERS
Dr. Joyce Radford, London Family Court Clinic
Dr. Debbie Chiodo, London Family Court Clinic
Emilia Pacholec, London Family Court Clinic
BIOS
Dr. Joyce Radford is the Director of Clinical Intervention Services at the London Family Court Clinic and is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Graduate Department of Psychology and within the Faculty of Education at Western University. Joyce has over 20 years of clinical experience with high-risk youth and supported the development of a DBT program for this population.
Debbie Chiodo holds a PhD in Educational Psychology and is an Evaluator at CAMH and an Assistant Professor at Western University. Her research and evaluation interests focus on the implementation and sustainability of evidence-based interventions. Debbie is a lead evaluator for the Ministry of Health’s Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario initiative.
Emilia Pacholec has a Master’s degree in Counselling Psychology from Western University. She has been extensively trained in DBT and has offered DBT to youth and families in a variety of settings. Emilia has been involved in numerous projects evaluating community-based programs for youth and is currently developing a new virtual DBT program for the London Family Court Clinic.