(File photo/ paNOW Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

Mental health

Catholic Family Services resuming in-person counseling

Jun 7, 2020 | 9:05 AM

One of the biggest impacts from the rollout of the COVID-19 precautions has been felt by people suffering from mental health issues, and not having someone to directly turn to.

In March due to COVID-19, Catholic Family Services (CFS) was forced to change their method of delivering counseling to phone and video sessions. Starting on June 15th, limited in-agency, face-to-face sessions will be made available again. Executive Director Louise Zurowski said many of their clients prefer personal contact and have had a hard time being able to relate over the phone.

“We’ve had people that are long time clients who we have called and said a counselor is only available through phone sessions. [They say] oh, I will wait ’til I can come back and see her in person,” she said.

Although the restrictions are being lifted, a number of protocols will follow including health screening of clients prior to and at appointment time. The main doors of the CFS office will be closed to the public – only clients with appointments will be let in for their session with staff. Children or partners are no longer available to wait in the building while a counseling session is going on. Zurowski said couples’ counseling has been one of the areas, affected most by the restrictions

“There are so many dynamics and there is so much body language that’s going on in the session, and you don’t get that over the phone,” she said.

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The Catholic Family Services office is located at 1008-first Ave. W. (File photo/ paNOW Staff)

Zurowski said appointment priority will be based on how long clients have been waiting, or if they have struggled with the phone and zoom systems. Zurowski said older clients appear to have the most reluctance to using the technology, but added children under 10 have struggled as well.

“A lot of them had issues before this even happened, and so a lot of it is dealing with parenting, and behavioral kinds of things,’ she said, adding one of their programs that deals specifically with controlling anger has been unavailable.

“When you think about it, some of these families have small spaces that they are living in, and all of a sudden kids are home full time, so there’s issues going in the family that were already there,” she said.

Meanwhile walk-in counseling clients at YWCA Central, Our House and Homeward Bound have scheduled access to services by phone only. Our House Assistant Manager Lana Roy said there has been an impact from the lack of personal contact.

“One person that was getting face to face said they find it difficult and they would sure like to see a counselor back again to Our House,” she said.

Anyone interested in booking a face-to-face session can contact the CFS during regular business hours Monday to Friday.

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nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell