A day shy of Christmas Eve the Report entitled Respect, Recovery, Resilience: Recommendations for Ontario’s Mental Health and Addictions Strategy was released to the public.  The Report was produced for the Minister of Health and Long Term Care by the Minister’s Advisory Group on the 10-Year Mental Health and Addictions Strategy.  Coming on the heels of the Legislatures Select Committee on Mental Health Report a few months ago this new Report deepens the hope that a full, robust, and effective strategy for provision of service to those living with mental health and addictions concerns is coming soon.

The “Triple R” Report offers support for what I think of as a continuum of mental health and addictions services.  It speaks of “improving the capacity of community based mental health services."  The Report emphasizes the need for “peer support” and advocates for “recovery and healthy development approaches."  The writers argue that there is backing for their strategy particularly “the focus on supportive environments, resilience, early intervention and integrated service."  The needs of children and youth are highlighted throughout the Report with acknowledgement of the necessity for specialized approaches geared to the unique issues they face.  The Report acknowledges the need and disparity across the Province with regard to medical based model service designed to “treat serious mental health issues."  It also is explicit in the need to create, and nurture more community based options which move beyond a medical model.  

Like the Select Committee, the Minister’s Advisory Committee has handed the task of leading  strategy development to the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care.  The Select Committee also recommended the creation of a Centre for Mental Health and Addictions be based upon the Cancer Care model.  The Triple R Report argues for a “whole government approach” led by the creation of the Ontario Health Quality Council and an Ontario Mental Health and Addictions Council with local decisions being made through existing Local Health and Integration Networks (LHINS) and, proposed, Local Mental Health and Addictions Networks (LMHAN)

So  - where to go from here?  “Hope” is a fragile and fleeting thing.  In this case it is tempered by the fact that the past Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, through the Provinces LHINs has only tepidly embraced the peer support, healthy development, recovery and community based approaches to mental health and wellness the Triple R Report calls for.  Perhaps not surprisingly the Ministry of Health has focused on medical model interventions regarding mental health, and children’s mental health in particular.  Resources available to the LHINs although tantalizing to those funded outside of the Health dollars even today already limit what LHINs are able to accomplish.  The challenge will be for the Ministry of Health, with a philosophical and even financial stake in the game, to provide balanced and objective leadership.  This is possible particularly under the present Minister of Health who held the post of Minister of Children and Youth Services in the past.

Finally one can’t help but be cynical about why the Report was released with little fanfare so close to the holidays.  Is it because as we continually hear “there is no new money” and as one bureaucrat told me “frameworks and strategies are what we do when there is no money?" 

The Triple R Report suggests that there is a “perfect storm of support” for a new approach to mental health and addictions in Ontario.  This needs to be the year, with an election imminent, that the storm rages enough that finally the three political parties will include their designs for a renewed mental health and addiction strategy in their election platforms and that these winds embolden the Government elected to take steps to tangibly move their strategy forward.