Liz Bannister of
Save the Children

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IT’S HARD to tell whether these tobogganers on Mount Seymour are having fun
or are simply terrified. The ski area has special! runs available for sledding. Now is
the perfect time to enjoy the sport because all local mountains reported large ac-
cumulations of snow in the past week.

Group homes

Privately-owned North Shore facilities
for mentally-ill face funding shortfall

high

PRIVATELY-OPERATED specialized group care homes
for the mentally-ill are in crisis locally as a combination of
tight provincial funding and mental health policy chang:s
put the squeeze on residential care operators.

On the North Shore alone ap-
proximately 80 mentally-il! people
are currently in need of some kind
of housing.

Said Sylvia Rewald, a North
Shore member of Friends of
Schizophrenics, ‘‘This grand
scheme for people to be out in the
community and getting help there
rather than having to go to River-
view is all very well, but facilities
aren’t there. Apparently the resi-

By Michael Becker
News Reporter

dential care facilities provide the
bulk of housing at this very mo-
ment and yet the private-care
People are under tremendous
stress from the system.

“They are insisting on really

standards without giving

them an increase in funding —

they’re starving them to death
basically. I find it really upsetting
because there is nothing there to
replace it,” she added.

But a !991 provincial govern-
ment report detailing a mental
health initiative plan for the
Fraser Valley-North Shore region
identifies ‘‘problems’’ with resi-
dential care facilities in general
including:
© a high return rate of residential
care clients to hospital;
® crowded facilities
privacy;

lacking in

oa lack of adequately trained
staff;
*a lack of support in helping
clients move to more independent
living.

The government plan calls for
reducing the size of residential
care facilities while increasing
their capacity to cope with more
difficult clients.

The plan sees ‘‘more of a
flow-through capability’? to speed
the movement of clients to a more
independent style of living.

The Mental Health Services
report envisions that more people
suffering from mental illness will
stay with families as local support
services increase.

Family care facilities are ex-
pected to provide the bulk of the
105 rehabilition beds identified as

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