Keyword: multidisciplinary

Promoting positive mental health with the program Passeport: S’équiper pour la vie (Passport: Skills for life)

Developed by a multidisciplinary team under the supervision of Professor Brian Mishara from the Université du Québec à Montréal and funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada, the mental health promotion program Passeport: S’équiper pour la vie (Passport: Skills for life) promotes children’s emotional well-being. More specifically, it encourages children to identify and assess coping strategies themselves in order to deal with new situations and everyday challenges. Studies show that early development of coping skills helps the child overcome challenges encountered during adolescence and adulthood

The social reality of mental health

For decades, social workers have been active in the field of mental health through interventions involving people and their environment. They consider individuals’ subjective reality, context and living conditions, as well as their social roles and network, from a perspective of recovery, empowerment, full citizenship and social justice.

Collaborative mental health care plays a key role

Mental health services are increasingly recognizing the key roles that primary care play in delivering mental health care in almost every community in Canada, and the importance of building collaborative partnerships to optimise these roles. Achieving this enables services to use their respective resources more efficiently, improve access to needed mental health and addiction services, better coordinate care, and improve the experience for the person seeking or receiving care for a mental health and addiction problem.

The daily need for clinical collaboration

People with mental health problems come to us seeking care on a daily basis. Complex issues and overcoming challenges are inevitable, therefore it is unrealistic to take on the task alone. Facing these issues effectively involves taking into account countless biopsychosocial factors and mastering very diverse specialized skills in interpersonal, diagnostic, therapeutic, social and community fields. Many clinicians have experienced the effectiveness of collaborating with various partners within their local network. In the context of a special report reviewing the literature on the effectiveness of collaborative mental health care in the treatment of depression, we will examine its daily clinical advantages experienced by both the population and clinicians.