NEWS 8
PEOPLE 9
City lawyers up
Homeless for a night
ENTERTAINMENT 10
Wes Mackey in town FOR THE BEST LOCAL
COVERAGE WEDNESDAY AUGUST 3 2016
LOCAL NEWS – LOCAL MATTERS.
There’s more at Burnabynow.com
GO TO PAGE 28
THE DOCTORS ARE IN:
Burnaby resident James Chen gets an acupuncture treatment at a free Chinese medicine clinic hosted by the Chinese Taoism Kuan Kung Association at Burnaby’s Tian Jin Temple on the weekend. The association brought in a Taiwanese group of more than 20 medical practitioners, students and professors from the China Medical University of Taiwan with members from International Volunteer Chinese Medical Service Corps. They offered acupuncture, massages and Chinese herbal medicine. The Taiwanese Embassy helped put on the event. For more photos, see www. burnabynow.com.
JENNIFER GAUTHIER
Union wants mental health numbers Ministry that oversees custody centre says it doesn’t track the number of youth with mental health issues Jennifer Moreau
jmoreau@burnabynow.com
The union for prison officers is claiming more incarcerated youth are dealing with mental illnesses, but the ministry that cares for them says it’s not tracking the numbers. Following the recent prison riot at the Burnaby youth custody centre, Dean Purdy, a spokesperson with the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union, said his members have been anecdotally reporting higher cases of mental illness in the youth prison population. But when the NOW asked the Ministry
of Children and Family Development for numbers to determine if the rate of mental illness is increasing or decreasing, we were told there aren’t any. “The ministry doesn’t track mental health issues for youth in custody as a whole,” said a ministry spokesperson in a statement emailed to the NOW. “Staff would need to go through every file to do a special data pull in order to get the actual number of youth in custody in Burnaby who have mental health challenges.” That doesn’t mean the ministry is clueless about who has a mental health disorder. There are roughly 43 youth at the Burnaby
centre, and they are screened for mental ill“We’ve had a request out for some time nesses, treated individually and offered serwith the employer, asking for those stats, vices, according to the as well as the updated ministry. violence stats, and we … information we have haven’t received that,” “If a youth in custofrom our members is Purdy said. “All anecdy has a mental health concern, it would be there are more kids dotal information we noted on their file, and have from our meminside with mental bers is there are more the supports and services available to that kids inside with mental health issues youth would be tailored health issues, and there’s towards their specifbeen a rise in overall vioic needs,” the ministry lence inside the jail, not stated. “For example, only youth-on-youth, but if a youth has issues with anxiety, they may youth-on-officer.” receive regular counselling sessions or be After the recent riot, Purdy told the placed on medication through a referral to NOW “kids with mental health issues do a doctor.” not belong in a correctional centre.” The union also wants to see numbers. Continued on page 5
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