Lethbridge Woods Homes promotes Mental Health, supports increase during pandemic

This week marks Mental Health week across Canada and Woods Homes in Lethbridge wants to promote awareness around mental health in our children. Woods Homes provides around the clock support to children, youth, and families and the organization hopes to kick down barriers surrounding mental health. An official with Woods Homes says they have seen an increase in the use of their services because of the pandemic.

“We absolutely had seen a 17 per cent increase agency-wide in the use of our services. The pandemic did pose some challenges for our organization because we had to shut down kind of half of our beds so we were operating at a capacity of four out of eight for over the past couple of years. It didn’t really reduce the services we were offering, it just sort of changed them. There was a lot of outreach support, there was a lot of in-home kind of drive-by on the fly deliverers of essential goods, crisis support over the phone,” said Shauna Cohen, Programs Manager for Lethbridge Woods Homes.  

Saturday also marks Children’s Mental Health Day and several places around Lethbridge will shine the colour green to show their support for Mental Health Week including City Hall, Cargill Grain Terminals and the Water Tower Grill. If you or someone you know needs help contact Woods Homes here.