CAMH advances LGBTTTQI strategy

Community meeting marked by frank and open dialogue

CAMH took a step forward in advancing its new LGBTTTQI strategy with a community meeting which many participants expressed as a “positive” new dialogue.

Approximately 60 people attended a meeting convened by CAMH and hosted by Sherbourne Health Centre to update community members of the LGBTTTQI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Two-Spirited, Queer, Questioning & Intersex) initiatives CAMH has underway and to forge more positive links with the community. The session also had a good representation of CAMH staff from various programs and the LGBTTTQI Caucus and Working Group.

Susan Pigott, CAMH Vice-President of Communication and Community Engagement opened the meeting by reporting that: “Our 2006 Diversity Review told us we still had a way to go in terms of our relationship with some members of the LGBT community and that we hadn’t done a very good job of communicating the work we are doing.”

Kwasi Kafele, CAMH’s Director, Diversity Programs, then outlined the elements of a strategy intended to build and strengthen relationships with the LGBTTTQQI community. The strategy and action plan are posted under Diversity Programs on the CAMH website (see sidebar).

“With this strategy we are re-committing to diversity at all levels in the organization … with one specific focus being the LGBTTTQQI population, and the diversity within it,” Kafele said. This strategy is aimed at making CAMH better able to support and respond to the mental health and addiction needs of this community and provide services that are relevant to its needs and recognize the role played by homophobia, transphobia and heterosexism in mental health and addictions.

Kafele drew a link between this approach and CAMH’s major focus on the social determinants of health, the importance of such factors as housing, employment, location and demographics in understanding mental health and addictions issues.

For CAMH, that includes important issues like collecting better data related to LGBTTTQQI clients, and to working with its researchers to refine its approach to understanding issues affecting LGBTTTQQI communities.

Among the initiatives CAMH highlighted was Asking the Right Questions 2 (ARQ2) a tool to better support clinicians in their approaches to clients from marginalized sexual orientations and gender identities. Ishwar Persad of CAMH Education Services said that ARQ2, which has been rolling out across the province, will now be applied internally at CAMH with the aim of training some 500 clinicians.

Dr. Jim Cullen, Clinical Head of CAMH’s Rainbow Services, in the Addiction Programs area also highlighted the work of that service, the only one of its kind anywhere in Canada, which has hired a trans-gendered staff member to aid in outreach to that community.

Tim Guimond has also joined Rainbow Services as their new staff psychiatrist to help them provide comprehensive services for clients who, in addition to substance use difficulties, also have mental health concerns.

Tim will also lead research with CAMH’s community partners (the AIDS Committee of Toronto, Casey House and St. Michael’s Hospital) to study the use of motivational interviewing in community settings to help gay and bisexual men reduce their HIV risk behaviours in the setting of substance use.

CAMH’s Substance Abuse Program for African Canadian & Caribbean Youth (SAPACCY) is successfully connecting with Queer black youth and CAMH’s continuing support of Freezone, a drug- and alcohol-free ‘oasis’ at Pride were also noted.

Kafele and Susan both indicated that CAMH is committed to exploring with Sherbourne Health Centre additional treatment options for people seeking to transgender.

Dr. Rohan Ganguli, CAMH’s Executive Vice-President, Clinical Programs, told those present that CAMH will be surveying their peers across the country and around the globe about treatment approaches for the Trans community. CAMH will also be working closely with Sherbourne Health Centre on exploring options with the provincial government on the complex issue of sexual reassignment surgery and all the related issues.

A number of participants encouraged CAMH to work with Sherbourne Health Centre to explore different approaches to services to the Transgendered community, and some also expressed concerns with approaches to research and data gathering that have the potential to ‘pathologize’ Transgendered people.

Kafele indicated that the Research Department at CAMH is at the table in advancing the general diversity agenda including the commitment to the LGBT strategy, and will be looking at its recruitment and hiring practices as well as the way it collects data.

CAMH is committed to cultural change and to supplementing its clinical perspective in this area, they said, but they also cautioned that widespread organizational and cultural change will be a slow, deliberate process, one Senior Diversity Consultant Janet Mawhinney likened to ‘turning around an ocean-liner.’

Kafele proposed that CAMH would commit to holding an annual ‘LGBT day’ at which community members and CAMH staff could reflect on and address CAMH’s work with the community. This idea seemed to be well received by those present.

CAMH advances LGBTTTQI strategy

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