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16 - The Oakville Beaver, Friday September 12, 2008 www.oakvillebeaver.com WE'RE MOVING FORWARD ON SUSTAINABLE HALTON PHASE II ­ GROWTH CONCEPTS Sustainable Halton. CMHA Halton gets top honour By Tina Depko OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF four open houses www.halton.ca/sustainablehalton. We look forward to hearing from you. Sustainable Halton Meeting Schedule Date Monday Location Burlington Venue Time Milton 605 Santa Maria Blvd Oakville Halton September 16 Hills OR Help break the silence and save lives www.suicidepreventionhalton.ca Gary Carr www.halton.ca/health. Halton Regional Meeting Schedule September 17 9:30 a.m. Regional Council 120908 1151 Bronte Road, Oakville, Ontario L6M 3L1 The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), Halton branch has been recognized nationally. Diane Doherty, who recently retired as CEO, was awarded the Edward Pennington Innovation Award at the CMHA annual national conference held recently in Nova Scotia. The award is named after Edward J. Pennington, who was the general director of the CMHA national office. It recognizes significant community development, mental health promotion projects or programs that exemplify team leadership and innovation in the mental health field. Although Doherty was not at the conference to receive the award, she said it is still a tremendous tribute. "I was so thrilled and honoured," said Doherty in an interview from her Burlington home. "I've worked so hard with CMHA and the community to help bring everyone together so it makes it easier for people in need to get help." Doherty served as CEO of CMHA, Halton branch from June 2003 to July 2008. She worked in corrections for more than three decades before coming to the organization. The CMHA offers programs to people affected by mental illness and promotes mental health in the community. Under Doherty's guidance, the CMHA went from a staff of eight to a team of 70 workers, she said. The budget also increased significantly, she added. Among the many accomplishments during her time with the non-profit organization, she cites several initiatives she undertook as her pride and joy. One is the Crisis Outreach and Support Team (COAST), which provides a mental health crisis line and mobile intervention service to individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. The goal of the COAST team is to enable individuals in crisis to remain safely within their own environment by providing a range of accessible services that include outreach assessments, telephone support, referrals and interventions to prevent further crisis. "This is one the programs I'm most proud of," Doherty said. "We partnered with the Halton Regional Police and have officers that actually work with us as part of a crisis team. We go with them to crisis calls that are of a mental health nature. That is so beneficial to the person, because we have a variety of trained people who go to that person's home, it is so much more humane and we're treating people with dignity." Another program Doherty cites as a major achievement during her time with CMHA, Halton branch is the Mental Health Court Support Program. This program offers assistance in two ways. First, it helps those accused of minor criminal offences to be diverted out of the criminal justice system and referred instead to community mental health services. Diane Doherty Secondly, it assists individuals with more serious charges to access mental health support while in the midst of court proceedings. "We didn't have a court diversion program in Halton, so people with mental illnesses would get picked up for doing some type of minor crime and end up in jail because they didn't have the wherewithal to handle the situation," Doherty said. "There are now three staff and a manager who work in the court with the crown attorneys and lawyers. That's worked really well." Doherty also takes pride in her involvement in the creation of the Release from Custody Program, which gives clients with a mental illness, developmental disability or head injury, who are currently housed in a correctional facility, assistance to reintegrate back into the community in a safe and appropriate manner by developing individualized treatment plans and facilitating links to community resources. "We have social workers going into Maplehurst and Vanier, and working with the clinical staff there to help put plans together to bring those people safely back to the community with a treatment plan," she said. "We also do follow-ups and provide ongoing counselling for up to six months, so they have that stability." As someone who has experience with inmates, Doherty said she is especially proud of the Mental Health Court Support and Release from Custody programs. "I worked in corrections for 34 years, as a prison warden, superintendent, and having worked all over the province, I was shocked when I started working in Halton at how little existed here," she said. "Other parts of Ontario had programs that didn't exist here, so I worked to fill that void, and there were a lot of people here who were willing to work with me towards that." Another program she's proud to be involved with is the Halton Suicide Prevention Coalition. She founded the coalition with Dr. Bob Nosal, medical officer of health with Halton Region, and former Burlington mayor Walter Mulkewich. The Suicide Prevention Coalition works to educate the community, schools and doctors about suicide and how to identify warning signs. It also holds an annual community meeting to help combat the problem. "Suicide is the leading cause of death See It page 20