Tag: mental health support

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Depression & Suicide

“[K]eep it in the family”

Creators:
Reeva Bhandal ਰੀਵਾ (she/hers)
Tracy Ngo 吴雯娜 (she/hers)

It is not a secret that Asian diaspora face particular challenges when it comes to mental health, particularly dealing with depression and suicide – both from within their cultures, and outside their cultures. From outside their cultures, they have to deal with a lot of racism, prejudice, and discrimination. Within their cultures, there is also a lot of conservatism and misunderstanding about mental health that prevents effective usage of mental health support. These complex problems require multi-faceted solutions – solutions that can greatly benefit from enough State-level financial support. In this letter to their Member of Parliament, Reeva and Tracy lay out the problems in detail, followed by impressively in-depth and well-researched solutions that they request from the government. Are there any other solutions not on the list that you’d like to see – whether from the government or from Asian diasporic communities?

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Take care of me when I’m older

[H]ow can filial piety be a double-edged sword in the context of caregivers’ mental health?

Host:
Eunice Lai 黎孝詩 (she/hers)

In this podcast submission, Eunice dives into the concept of filial piety within the context of a Hong Kong Canadian family. In particular, filial piety entails expectations about intergenerational caregiving from someone from a younger generation to someone from an older generation, with common interpretations of it requiring an immense level of self-sacrifice at the expense (or disregard) of one’s own well-being. This kind of caregiver role strain becomes compounded when the caregiver themselves is having to manage other issues and demands on their cognitive capacity on top of caregiving tasks. In Eunice’s case, her father took on a caregiving role for his father; but the stress of that role became exacerbated by her father’s own concerns and emotions surrounding the Hong Kong protests in 2019-2020. How does one navigate such an emotionally difficult situation?

Downloadable file here
Transcript here

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Can’t Use What’s Not There

Can’t Use What’s Not There

Creator:
Ghoncheh Eijadi

When we think about racialized or diasporic individuals establishing a livelihood in Canada, the prototypical conceptualization is an immigrant; but there are many others who do not fall into that group despite also trying to establish a livelihood here. This includes refugees, who often have very different experiences and are subject to very different obstacles from immigrants. Discussions around diasporic health, then needs to include this as well. From this perspective, Ghoncheh writes about IRER groups (Immigrants, Refugees, Ethno-Cultural, and Racialized) and their need for better and more culturally appropriate mental health support. In particular, Ghoncheh tries to outline the issues regarding the underutilization of mental health services among IRER groups, and lays out policy recommendations for how to rectify this issue.

Click on the following to reveal the paper (Note: PDF viewer not compatible with some mobile platforms; but it is available for download or to view via mobile PDF viewers)

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Dear Hon. David Eby

Cultural competence is an essential asset for healthcare providers

Author:
Elisha Fu 傅羽佳

When your community is faced with a problem, it can be hard to know how to even begin to address and tackle it. Leveraging her own experiences, Elisha decided to take on the issue of the underutilization of mental health support services among Asian Canadian communities with this draft letter to her Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), the Honourable David Eby. In this letter, Elisha discusses the scope of the problem at hand, and the devastating impact it can have on Asian disapora in Canada. Through her research, she proposes several important recommendations that the government should consider to ensure that there is sufficient culturally safe mental health resources that Asian diasporic communities can feel comfortable accessing. If you are faced with a similar problem affecting your community, what would you say to your MLA or Member of Parliament?

Click on the following to reveal the paper (Note: PDF viewer not compatible with some mobile platforms; but it is available for download or to view via mobile PDF viewers)

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