Mental Health Services & Information

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This directory provides links to services that address cultural diversity in mental health.

Find an Interpreter

The use of professional medical interpreters is essential for effective intercultural mental health care when clinician and patient do not share a common language. Cultural mediators or culture brokers are resource people who help explain clinically relevant cultural differences to patients and to clinicians.

Practitioners

Language barriers impede access to health care among the members of ethnic minorities, and their negative effects are even more visible in mental health care. Counselling psychologists who work with the clients in their native language have a capacity to understand them and their situations more fully. In addition, these psychologists often come from the same cultural background and participate in the same immigrant/refugee community as their clients, allowing them to better understand the culture and the politics involved in each case.

Currently, five provincial professional organizations of psychologists allow to search for psychotherapists by the languages they work with:

Additional Resources

Navigating Mental Health Services in Canada
A Guide for Newcomer Communities by Community Resource Connections of Toronto.

Mental Health First Aid (MHFA)
The Mental Health First Aid Canada program aims to improve mental health literacy, and provide the skills and knowledge to help people better manage potential or developing mental health problems in themselves, a family member, a friend or a colleague. Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) is help provided to individuals experiencing a mental health crisis or a person who might be developing a mental health problem.  Similar to physical first aid which is administered to an injured person before medical treatment can be obtained, MHFA is administered to an individual experiencing a mental health crisis until appropriate treatment is found or until the crisis is resolved. Anyone can benefit from MHFA. Families affected by mental health problems, teachers, health service providers, emergency workers, frontline workers who deal with the public, volunteers, human resources professionals, employers and community groups are just a few of the groups who have benefited from MHFA.