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The Reaching Out Program
The sooner that a psychosis is treated, the better the long-term prognosis or outcome. The converse, unfortunately, is also true: The longer that a psychosis is left untreated, and the more psychotic breaks suffered by someone with the illness, the lower the level of eventual recovery.Early intervention, in other words, is key to optimum outcomes and, for us at North Shore
Schizophrenia Society, it is of urgent importance. Accordingly, almost everything we do in the way of education and awareness has an early-intervention component.
Partnership Education, by explaining the illness to students, teachers and the community, helps people to recognize the illness, especially in those in their late teens and early adulthood when schizophrenia usually strikes. Similarly,
Walk the World, our participation in the West Vancouver
Community Day Parade, and
display tables at various events, break down the stigma that has been associated with the illness in the past, so that families and friends, when they see the illness in a loved one, won’t hesitate to talk about it and take action. Reaching Out, a video and curriculum resource kit for high school students
has been produced by the B.C. Schizophrenia Society
and made available to educators, medical
professionals and others. The North Shore
Schizophrenia Society has purchased copies of the Reaching Out video and resource kit for every high school on the North Shore, for use by teachers of Career and Personal Planning, Psychology and other courses. We maintain contact with those teachers, in turn, to get their feedback. Reaching Out tells the moving story of a high school girl who notices the withdrawal of a friend, realizes there is something seriously wrong with him, and reaches out to help. Learning about schizophrenia, she decides she must do something. She can’t just leave it alone. She speaks to a school
counsellor about her concerns and ends up knocking on the door of her friend’s house and talking to his mother, explaining the illness to her. The process of having the boy assessed and into treatment gets underway. The story is woven through with interviews with sufferers from the illness, in which they share their own experiences of falling ill and of how medication helped stabilize them - and how they have gone on from there to manage the illness and lead rewarding lives. The
video can be viewed at the Family Support Centre or online at the Schizophrenia Society of Canada’s website. The curriculum resource kit
for schools that goes with the video includes a teacher’s manual and background materials for two classroom sessions. The objective of the program: to develop awareness in high school students, teachers and
counsellors of the nature and early symptoms of schizophrenia so they may more readily recognize students who are falling ill and help them to receive the treatment that they need. The program, approved by the B.C. Ministry of Education, is recommended especially for CAPP 11 (Career and Personal Planning) and Psychology 11.
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Other early intervention material
Early Psychosis: What Family and Friends Need to Know
A 37-page, detailed booklet on psychosis, first episodes, early warning signs, and, as the title indicates, everything else one needs to know about the importance of early intervention and how to go about it. Available online in both html and pdf versions. Also available in print from the Family Support Centre.
Early Intervention
Why early intervention is so important, plus an outline of
NSSS school programs.
Early Psychosis: A Care Guide
A 118-page guide prepared by the Mental Health Evaluation and Community Consultation Unit at the Department of Psychiatry, UBC, available online in a pdf version.
Early Psychosis: A Care Guide Summary
Highlights of the approach and principle recommendations contained in the complete version.
Schizophrenia in Children
The early warning signs in youngsters with schizophrenia, plus guidelines for parents.
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