Healthier You
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RURAL CARE<br />
MENTAL<br />
HEALTH AND<br />
SUBSTANCE<br />
USE<br />
PRIMARY<br />
HEALTH CARE<br />
SENIORS CARE<br />
SURGICAL ACCESS<br />
MENTAL HEALTH<br />
AND SUBSTANCE USE<br />
SURGICAL ACCESS RURAL CARE<br />
Teamwork<br />
ACTs<br />
to help those at risk<br />
above: Kelowna ACT Team<br />
Lead Lisa Wensink.<br />
Jeanette Judson, 54, has a powerful voice. Even<br />
when speaking about her struggles with mental<br />
illness, poverty and abuse, she is unabashed.<br />
“We need to talk about these things,” she<br />
says passionately. “We need to talk about<br />
mental health, affordable housing, and<br />
poverty. Our lives are not set in stone. I<br />
really want people to know that anyone<br />
could end up like I was.”<br />
Jeanette was found by an Assertive<br />
Community Treatment (ACT) team<br />
member living on the streets in Kamloops<br />
last summer, deep in crisis. She had been<br />
in and out of shelters for years, struggling<br />
to manage her mental health and make<br />
ends meet.<br />
Interior Health’s ACT team helped<br />
Jeanette stabilize and connected her with<br />
important social and health-care supports.<br />
continued on page 18 <br />
14 <strong>Healthier</strong> <strong>You</strong> spring 2016
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