Children and youth in the Calgary area will soon be able to receive complex trauma treatment, as CASA Mental Health expands its programming to southern Alberta.
The Trauma program will be for children between the ages of five and 17 and their caregivers.
“There’s lots of places you can get assessments and understand, ‘oh, that’s why you’re acting like this,’” says Sarah Andres, clinical manager of the Calgary Trauma program. “But this program takes it one step further into the treatment and the resolution of, ideally, those traumatic events.”
Broadly speaking, Andres says, trauma is any event that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope.
“This program focuses on developmental and attachment trauma,” she adds. “These are not necessarily like single-incident car accident-type traumas. They’re repetitive in nature. They can be somewhat chronic over a long period of time.
“It primarily relates to how the child experiences their safety and connection to their caregivers. That’s what this program is focused on, which is unique. I think it’s unique in Edmonton, and it is definitely unique in Calgary. It doesn’t exist here.”
CASA Mental Health has been operating its Trauma program in Edmonton for a number of years, supporting patients through individual and group therapy, focusing on trauma processing and stabilization.
The Calgary program will also focus on consultation and supporting other professionals in the community to be able to work with youth who have experienced developmental trauma.
“The gap that does exist was identified by CEO Bonnie Blakley and others when the program was considered and now, as we’re doing the community engagement meetings, (that gap) is the ability to pursue that developmental and attachment trauma without charging families and without having a 10-session limit,” Andres notes. “These are the pieces that are really unique to CASA, that do not exist in other places.”
Work is ongoing to begin a phased rollout of the program later this year, with a limited number of patient referrals. When the program is fully operational, it will serve hundreds of children and youth per year.
Andres is extremely passionate about the work to bring the program to Calgary. As a clinician, supervisor and manager she has witnessed and heard from patients and families about the gaps in treatment and long-term support, often leading to visits to the emergency room.
“The passion that I have to do this work, and to lead this work in particular, is because of both of those groups of clients and families where things are just so dysregulated, or they’re just being missed systemically, because what they need long-term isn’t available,” Andres says.
“We’re not going to be miracle workers in Calgary. We don’t have all the answers. We’re going to need to develop and grow, but the possibility, the freedoms and the resources that CASA puts in to support their programs and really live out those values, that’s why this is going to be amazing.”
