By Jennifer Carreira
The Centretown Community Health Centre is hiring a youth mental health counsellor in an effort to address the wellness needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered youth.
“The counsellor will be more familiar with the needs and issues of GLBT youth,” says Marguarite Keeley, executive director of the centre.
She says this good news corresponds to the GLBT Wellness Project, a year-long survey which looked at the health and wellness of Ottawa’s GLBT community and revealed an “alarming need” to focus on youth. Because it was such a striking issue, the centre submitted a request to the City of Ottawa for funds, and is currently hiring for the part-time position.
Bruce Bursey, spokesperson for the GLBT Wellness Project, says it is clear that more needs to be done for young people.
“Based on the findings of the survey,” he says, “Ottawa is failing its youth.” The study shows Ottawa as GLBT-friendly, with a strong network of organizations, but it also reveals that 62 per cent of teens say depression is an issue in their lives.
“Suicide levels among these teens are three times higher than their straight counterparts,” says Bursey, who adds the statistics are shocking because they surpass even mental health statistics among “high-risk” youth in the general population, such as substance abusers, street kids and victims of abuse.
Almost half of respondents under 25 reported having no family doctor. Bursey says youth focus groups provided an understandable reason: “If that doctor is also the doctor of your parents, there’s the fear they’ll tell your parents. So for the purpose of survival, you’re going to stop going to the doctor.”
Brenda Allard, a counsellor for the Youth Services Bureau, says it is important that any initiative for these youth be in their own language. Allard heads the Rainbow Youth Advisory Group, a committee of young people who run coffee houses and bargain for space at various community centres. She says their Web site for Ottawa GLBT youth, planned for launch this November, is a fun, informative online service “being developed by youth, for youth.”
“It’s wonderful that they’re empowered to do this themselves,” says Allard, “but why aren’t we as adults doing it for them?”
Bursey says the Wellness Project was about getting a pulse from the GLBT community and he hopes initiatives like the new youth counsellor at the health centre show that other organizations are beginning to operate more proactively toward the needs of GLBT youth.