Nearly 70 psychoeducators and psychoeducation faculty members sign a letter to remind the government and the public that this profession can meet today’s mental health needs.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
“We too are here, we too can help,” says Gabrielle Yale-Soulière, psychoeducator and lecturer at the University of Montreal, supported by 68 co-signers. When it comes to mental health, psychoeducators are too often excluded from government discourse, she told The Press. The fact that these services are taxed, unlike those offered by a psychologist, for example, makes them less accessible, deplores Ms.me Yale Souliere. Added to this is the fact that many insurance companies do not cover psychoeducation.
For these reasons, the profession remains little known to the public, believes Amélie Meeschaert, psychoeducator and lecturer at the School of Psychoeducation at the University of Montreal. There is also the fact that psychoeducation is practiced almost exclusively in Quebec, argues Gabrielle Yale-Soulière.
It is possible that certain populations are just not aware because [la psychoéducation] is less known elsewhere in the world. It is not a term used on television.
Gabrielle Yale-Soulière, psychoeducator and lecturer at the University of Montreal
However, psychoeducation makes it possible to intervene with people suffering in particular from anxiety, aggressiveness or behavioral disorders. “If you have difficulty adapting, which is often the case in a pandemic because we have difficulty adapting to our new reality, we are here to support you,” underlines Gabrielle Yale-Soulière.
Psychoeducators do not only work in schools, specifies Amélie Meeschaert. “There are even some in some CHSLDs,” she says. It affects all clienteles, be it childhood, adolescence, adulthood or seniors. “The entire population would undoubtedly benefit from psychoeducation becoming a non-taxable service, argues the psychoeducator.
At the time of writing these lines, we had not received a response from the office of the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, following our request for an interview on this subject.
High demand related to anxiety
According to Gabrielle Yale-Soulière, there is currently a high demand for the problems of social anxiety, generalized anxiety or performance anxiety.
Mme Yale-Soulière says it receives several requests to take care of panic attacks in young people.
They have to go back to school after long absences and start taking the bus again. I’m really going to come and accompany them in this and show them, at each stage of the panic attack, how to overcome it.
Gabrielle Yale-Soulière, psychoeducator and lecturer at the University of Montreal
Amélie Meeschaert receives several requests from parents concerning the management of children’s behavior. Telecommuting and the financial constraints linked to the pandemic are accentuating family problems, she notes.
As National Suicide Prevention Week unfolds, psychoeducation can also play a role in this regard, points out Gabrielle Yale-Soulière. As with the BLUES program, which works with people aged 12 to 18. “Suicide often happens after depression,” she says. If we intervene when they are young in prevention and they have depressive symptoms, we can act to prevent suicide. »