Treasures
Fortunately, Elizabeth Davis, founder and manager of the non-profit shop on Levendale Road is used to challenges. When the United Way couldn’t offer start-up funds, Davis made due. When the Ministry of Health turned down her application for financial assistance Davis went to the Town of Richmond Hill and received some money but just as important, council’s moral support. When Davis assumed possession of the store, she called Richmond Hill’s Curtain Club. “They have a volunteer mentality,” she explains and as ex-president of the local theatre group, Davis wasted no time tapping that resource. Volunteers were responsible for everything from drywall taping to stapling on the ceiling tiles. The flooding of the store’s basement, however, was strictly ‘An Act of God”. “The store had no water,” Davis explains, “So we prayed for water and August 15th most of Richmond Hill was flooded.” (Never underestimate the power of prayer.) Elizabeth Davis, herself the mother of a schizophrenic daughter, is deeply committed to offering recovering psychiatrics a working environment where they can find support and encouragement. Treasures is a place where ex-psychiatric patients can rebuild their sense of self-worth through individual work and collective contribution. Davis looks to the people themselves, to discover and express their own areas of strength. One recovering psychiatric patient had previous experience as a store owner and has shown particular talent as a creative window dresser. Every two weeks the theme for the window display is chosen, appropriate items within the store are selected, the layout is drafted and finally the design is assembled. The work is time consuming but valuable as advertising and as an attractive introduction to the shop. Best of all, the entire production is the responsibility of one of the ex-patients. According to Davis, it was the life and death of her friend, Jill Perry, which sparked the development of ‘Treasures’. The result of a motor vehicle accident, Jill Perry’s life was transformed from that of a high-functioning, occupational therapist to a psychiatric invalid. “Jill was in desperate need of somewhere where she could go and feel that she was useful. Because she remembered how she had been and there was this continual frustration of not being able to do what she used to,” Davis remembers. In just one year, ‘Treasures’ has established itself as a place where you can feel useful. By offering a place to work, the psychiatrically disabled can begin to establish a routine. Having a job places specific social demands on a person. As Davis says, “It motivates you to get up in the morning and organize yourself. To shower, wash your hair, sort out your clothes, catch the bus… all those separate, little things that can overwhelm the psychiatrically disabled. Things that we take for granted.” One young man with psychiatric difficulties had grown accustomed to living between jail terms. He didn’t seem to expect life to change but his sister called Davis to try to get him a job. After an initial interview and a verbal commitment from him to attend his shift, he did not return. Davis ‘kept at him’ simply by asking him when he’d be coming to work. Finally, after five consecutive weeks of non-attendance he arrived prepared to work and is now developing consistent work habits. “Most people would have written him off,” Davis concludes, “But just to get to a place on time once a week is a big thing for most of these people. We have the independence (to wait out the problems). It’s a luxury that we can do things like that.” Support for this approach to helping the psychiatrically disabled had been offered by Linda Bullock, another Richmond Hill resident. Bullock’s background as a psychiatric nurse for the Clarke Institute and Queen Street Mental Health Centre, led her to question the wisdom of de-institutionalization. “I worked with the community health thing for years,” she says, “particularly at Queen Street where it became a tremendous issue to try and de-institutionalize people. As a result, all sorts of little satellites were set up in the community. I don’t think it’s (de-institutionalization) moved very far even today because of the fact that everybody was still working for Queen Street and in fact, the community never took over or had enough input.” According to Bullock, if the decisions and objectives of any facility for recovering psychiatrics are set up by an institution as opposed to the community itself, then, “Instead of finding meaningful work for people to do, counseling gets done and I certainly think that there’s a place fro counseling but,” she says, “I think sometimes that patients/clients get very caught up in it and in fact they need to get away from the institution and find something to do and get back into society again.” Ideally, Bullock and Davis would like to see ‘Treasures’ remain independent from other mental health facilities. However, they also realize that that small, independent attitude may limit their access to government funding. In January of this year, the Ministry of Health announced a grant of $164,000 to the Canadian Mental Health Association of York Region to “develop social and recreational facilities for the psychiatrically disabled.” The Ministry simultaneously refused funding of $12,000 to ‘Treasurers’, an established facility and the only one available in York Region at this time. Among the politicians questioning this inconsistent funding is Bill Bell, Councillor of Ward 3. “It just seems,” he says, “that the government is tripping over itself saying ‘no’ to her (Davis) on the one hand and yet setting up this marvelous new program on the other.” At the present time, most of the funding for ‘Treasures’ comes from the United Church of Canada but the money is distributed on a reduced scale over the next four years. So Davis must continually get the message out to the public to remember ‘Treasures’ before you toss out the old skis that you couldn’t bother to advertise. ‘Treasures’ cannot store large items but is always in need of knick-knacks, art work and supplies or costume jewelry. This is a community sponsored, non-profit store dedicated to helping others to help themselves. Its success or failure depends on us. “I’m plugging this,” Davis states, “that we’re the only facility here for recovering ex-psychiatric patients. But on the other hand I would so love to be able to make it even more of a community thing so that if somebody doesn’t specifically have a psychiatric diagnosis but has similar problems and needs this place that they could come. I’d love to be able,” she adds, “to just take them and not be answerable to such a very fine definition. I really do think it’s terrible to put everybody in boxes. I don’t think it’s helpful.” Happy Anniversary Treasures. |