Brad Pierce, a Calgary father, seen on April 20, and a fellow father are trying to create Alberta’s first eating disorder treatment centre for youth.Chris Bolin/The Globe and Mail
More than 31,000 Albertans suffer from eating disorders, but the province does not have a specialized treatment facility for diseases such as anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia, for example, has the highest mortality rate compared to other mental illnesses, and dying by suicide is a major risk. The Calgary Silver Linings Foundation, a relatively new, not-for-profit charitable organization, is trying to build a residential treatment centre in Alberta. Carrie Tait spoke to Calgary lawyer Brad Pierce, one of the organization's founders.
What is the Calgary Silver Lining Foundation?
It was formed by a group of concerned parents whose children have been affected by eating disorders. We spent a couple of years building our board with people who have been affected, either as parents or as individuals themselves, and others with certain skill sets – whether accounting, law, fundraising, communications. We're now moving into the fundraising implementation phase.
A residential treatment centre is a type of care that is critical in the recovery for people affected by eating disorders. The holistic treatment is basically everything from psychiatrists to medical doctors to nurses to psychologists to social workers working together on a patient-focused effort to get these, largely kids, though certainly older people and adults are affected by eating disorders, the tools and the strategies to help them manage the illness.
Why are you doing this?
My family has been affected by this, and many of the other board members have had children or relatives affected by eating disorders. Our experience has been that we don't have the continuing care necessary in this province to properly treat this illness. We have the acute facilities there to stabilize the person, but they really don't get them well. Then there are the day programs or private clinics and service providers that I would say provide too light of a touch to allow patients to recover in a reasonable time frame.
There's a misconception of what this illness is about. It is not an illness by choice. It is an illness not unlike any other medical illness. Alberta is not unusual [with respect to a lack of treatment centres for eating disorders]. Mental illness is kind of the step-child of the medical system, and certainly eating disorders are kind of the step-child of mental illness, irrespective of the fact it has a higher mortality rate than any other mental illness and recovery factors are fairly low.
Will this be private, and is that allowed?
There are already a number of public-private partnerships with the system, whether it is diagnostics or treatment of specific illnesses [such as] prostate cancer or heart disease, that are under the purview of Alberta Health Services. They are under contract with AHS and with strict guidelines. Our intent would be that this ultimately becomes part of the AHS system.
We have had discussions with a number of partners, including AHS, [about] developing a type of public-private partnership to move this forward quickly so that families have some alternatives or options that weren't available to the people who are the driving force behind this.
Would it be a first resort or last step for patients?
It can be both. If [someone is put in hospital,] usually it is months, not weeks, to give them the tool sets to manage their illness on their own. Or if this illness is caught early, they can get to a place where they can develop the strategies early on to address this, which is the best possible circumstance.
It needs to be intensive. If not, you have these poor outcomes of mortality rates and recovery rates [and patients] get to the point where they are near death.
Why do you think your group can get a facility off the ground?
We have spent the time to develop our board and strategic plan and have access within the community to philanthropy that will enable us to have a successful public-private partnership. It is not just a group of concerned parents wanting to raise a bunch of money and [then not be able] to make it happen. We've got our charitable status, so Revenue Canada has certainly found the objectives and the formation of the foundation [feasible].
We feel $3-million to $5-million is going to be what's necessary to get this properly set up, and then we're hoping that falls within the normal system. That's the plan, but we have to be adaptive to donors and be adaptive to partners. The board thinks something [could be operational in] three years. I'd like to do it in less than two.
Carrie Tait