A $13,330 donation from Shoppers Drug Mart will help Cochrane students stay connected to a valuable mental health program offered by Rocky View Schools.
For the past six months, the Cochrane Learning Centre, housed in the provincial building on First Street West, has been piloting a mental health outreach program for students from Grade 9 to Grade 12.
Murray Arnold, principal of the learning centre, said the catalyst for the pilot program was a number of tragic deaths of young people in the community last summer.
Recognizing the need to address mental health concerns stemming from those events, the learning centre, with the help of Cochrane Addiction Mental Health, began a one-day-a-week outreach program.
Through the program, students had the opportunity to meet with youth outreach worker Chantal Leroux once a week in what Arnold described as a non-intimidating environment.
Leroux, who described the attendance of four to six students each week as a success, said the program provided her with a valuable opportunity to meet with students on a broad level – anything from community engagement and healthy relationships to substance abuse.
Aside from demonstrating the importance of mental health to students, Arnold said the program also allowed the school community to establish a support network beyond school hours.
“After the school day ends we lose that connection, this way we get to keep that connection,” said Arnold.
Without that additional support, some students were going from school to unhealthy environments or into self-imposed seclusion.
“We could use three Chantals in Cochrane, the need is that intense,” said Arnold.
Funding for the pilot program ran out in June meaning there has been a gap in service since then, but funding from Cochrane’s Shoppers Drug Mart means, starting January, Leroux will be back at the learning centre until at least June 2017.
“We’re hoping it will carry us through the summer as well,” said Arnold.
The donation, through the Growing Women’s Health fundraising campaign (formerly called Tree of Life), will subsidize the cost of Leroux’s services through that time period.
While the campaign traditionally funds women’s health initiatives, the learning centre’s outreach services are not exclusively geared toward girls.
This year’s $13,330 beat the 2015 total by $3,300 and Leithe Holowaty, pharmacist/owner of the Cochrane Shoppers said each year the store makes a point of donating to a community cause.
Last year, the money went to a community post partum program.
Holowaty said her and her staff wanted to give to a mental health program because they recognized the need, a fact highlighted by a comment from Leroux suggesting there is a $10 million funding gap for mental health services.
“With the downturn in the economy, there are lots of people seeking aid and I’m not sure we are equipped to help all of them,” she said.
