Canadian Mental Health Association Edmonton - Edmonton

They are supposed to be supportive and helpful, and all I experienced with them is bullying and segregation. They also talk badly about their donors. I will never ask them for help again. I will never donate either. Awful people in charge.

I tried to get help one night suffering from a horrible life changing event.I highly recommend that if you feel really bad about yourself, then don't talk to the distress line. When done I was bullied by the person who I talked to, and felt worse.

Housing is horrible. As a tenant I was not treated with dignity and respect by the landlord or manager, I noticed they beliddled and degraded most tenants that lived there. In one instance I had written a letter to the landlord about how the manager completely came down on me yelling and even shoving her way into my apartment because my boyfriend was over and she was accusing him of living there and it was christmas eve! She had no proof and I proved he had his own place but still she would be very controlling and put me down. But I wrote a letter to the landlord because her abuse had been so overwhelming that I cut myself. She was that bad to me. I never felt at home or safe. The landlord never addressed my letter to her or talked with me about it at all. Only good thing was the mental health worker but they never ended up sticking around, went through 3 or 4 workers. All in all CMHA housing is not a good home for people suffering with mental illness or any kind of illness. They hurt you more than help you. Thankfully I am in a good home now. With management and staff who treat all tenants with respect and are very helpful.

Members of the public, please be informed that the C.M.H.A. Edmonton Distress Centre, 'apparently' audio records every call. How is this legal when there is no warning at the start of calls? Aren't public / private / non-profit organizations obligated (by the law) to inform callers if calls will be recorded? Somehow this doesn't seem like a, "safe, confidential," distress line. This information should warrant a full investigation by Journalists. If you'd like to know more, just ask staff on the distress line. Some staff members will openly admit to and acknowledge that they record calls. How is this allowed?

Cmha is a great place for workshops and resources.

I have called this line numerous times over the years, and quickly learned to avoid it. It was the worst distress line in Canada 6 years ago, and it remains one of the worst today. In fact, The CMHA (in general) has a lot of issues to solve. For one, recording all of your calls without consent is a big no-no, and yet they continue to do so. Surprising to me when the mandate is to provide a, "safe and confidential," service to vulnerable populations in need of help. Everyone refers us to these lines, but they don't let us know that it is essentially legalized entrapment. Everything you say, can and will be used against you in a court of law. Trust is earned and until you see what these people are writing - I wouldn't trust. When staff are ineffective at helping you, they will stick to their rigid training modality and claim that you are, "misusing services," in order to hangup and avoid taking responsibility. After they have hung up, they will refuse to pick up the phone. They will also claim that, "you are not in crisis," and actually believe that hanging up is the most effective way to handle the situation! If you want to abuse vulnerable populations covertly and get away with it - volunteer at a CMHA distress line! CMHA will protect you at all costs! You also have free reign to write lies about clients, invalidate clients. You can rub their personal information in their face before abruptly hanging up on them, even when they are crying and or triggered! You can breach confidentiality and claim they are a danger to self or others - just so you have an excuse to share their personal information with police without just cause. If you should trigger someone due to your incompetence, lack of empathy, invalidation, and or victim blaming and shaming, you can use the clients justified reaction as an excuse to claim that the client is now abusive, and therefore, you must end the call. This is called a DARVO Smear Campaign. IF they trigger you, or treat you poorly to the point you react - they will refuse to accept responsibility and will instead blame you and end the call! This does NOT hold workers accountable, therefore, they never learn. This is probably why this issue still remains 6 years later. If you should wish to talk about the topic of your choosing, staff will redirect you in an effort to end the call - only because they claim the service is, "solution focused," and, "not a replacement for long-term therapy." You also, "cannot share the same content more than once!" People don't call distress lines unless they need help! And not everyone has access to therapy! Not everyone has supports outside of distress lines. To lump every caller into your limitations and expect them to fit perfectly is both fallacious and extremely dangerous. And to expect every caller to react calmly to these limits is also dangerous. And if the caller should advocate and let you know how you can help them better - it is an opportunity to learn and grow. What helps one may not help another. How can you possibly think that your rigid modality will remain effective for everyone who calls in? Also, distress and crisis looks different for everyone, and unless your volunteers are trained clinicians, it is extremely dangerous to afford them power to make these distinctions, and to allow them to hang up whenever they see fit. Most communication is non-verbal. How can your staff possibly know if someone is in crisis or not, when you are relying solely on verbal communication? Not everyone who is suicidal is crying or emotionally dysregulated! But hanging up on someone in need of help will increase their suicidality, not decrease it. This distress line needs a complete revamping of its policies and its training. It should also be more selective about its volunteers. Some staff are suffering empathy burnout and compassion fatigue, and they risk re-traumatizing callers unless they look after themselves. Staff also state it will not accept calls about the same topic more than once. So what about callers who have PTSD? Trauma doesn't go away overnight!

Have the opportunity to participate in ASIST course on suicide first aid with the Canadian Mental Health Association. A fantastic course that everyone should take on improving how we connect and support the people around us.

Incredible distress line volunteers dedicated to helping people! I know this view might be controversial, but they really should be paid for their time (alot of them are students who need it for their studies too who could really use the extra money). It's a very demanding job with lots of requirements and they deserve to be compensated considering the organization cannot run without them AND they're constantly under supervision/evaluation which can be quite stressful. Maybe one day our society will be paying the most essential workers their fair wage (including others working in low wage/volunteer jobs), hopefully starting with the organizations that preach the 'good' they're doing/how enlightened they are to society but still stuck at the level of only paying their supervisors/managers and executives.