Mental Health Supports

Native Friendship Centre to lead Prince George mental health crisis response team

Feb 11, 2024 | 11:11 AM

PRINCE GEORGE — The Canadian Mental Health Association B.C. (CMHA BC) says the organizations that will lead mental health crisis response teams in three B.C. communities — including Prince George — have been chosen.

The Peer Assisted Care Teams (PACT), funded by the province, were announced in July.

The Prince George Native Friendship Centre will lead the local team.

According to a CMHA BC news release, each community’s organizing agencies were chosen “for their community presence and expertise, person-centered and trauma-informed approach, commitment to lived experience to inform this work, and alignment with PACT’s core values of compassion, trust, and self-determination to mental health crisis care.”

“Providing the tools necessary to ensure those that need help get it is paramount,” said Cariboo-Prince George MP Todd Doherty, the Conservative Shadow Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention. “Peer Assisted Care will be a huge benefit to those in need and the Prince George Community as a whole. As legislators we have to continue to raise awareness, but more importantly, we need to provide the grassroot caregivers the support they need in communities here in BC and across Canada.”

Proponents were also announced for Kamloops and the Comox Valley.

The lead agencies will now begin community engagement, recruitment and training of PACT members.

It’s expected the teams will be ready to roll out in late spring or early summer of 2024.

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