72 seats funded at VIU for health care assistants

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Thursday COVID-19 update

Central Vancouver Island continues to be a hotspot for COVID-19. Island Health is reporting 47 new cases of the virus today. There are now 212 active cases in the health region, with the vast majority, 157 on the central island. Province-wide, there were 564 new cases confirmed over the past 24 hours and 15 deaths.

Gaming grant funding to help vulnerable youth

Vulnerable youth in the Cowichan Valley and Nanaimo are getting a boost, through a series of gaming grants. The Cowichan Valley Branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association will receive $121,000 dollars to buy two vans. Its executive director, Lise Haddock says the vans are the key to connecting youth at risk with the supports they need.

"Many of our kids who are being impacted by homelessness, the opiate crisis, the impact of COVID and the lack of resources and a lack of services, really need to be reconnected,. and we see these vehicles as a mechanism around relational practices and a mechanism to connect. So the use of vehicles, we see them as a therapeutic tool. They're more than a vehicle."
—Cowichan Valley CMHA Executive Director Lise Haddock.

The Vancouver-based Take A Hike program for youth at risk says it will also buy a van with its $76,000 dollar grant, and it will be used in its Nanaimo program that serves 40 young people.

VIU benefiting from Health Career Access program

Meanwhile, Vancouver Island University will benefit from the province's plan to train and hire more long term care workers. The government's Health Career Access program will fund 600 post-secondary seats across the province, including 72 at Vancouver Island University. The health care assistants will be paid while they complete their courses and train at care sites. And, incentives are paid to those who remain in the industry after graduation. The $8.4 million dollar program was announced last September in response to the pressure put on the system by the pandemic. Today's announcement is the second this week in relation to health care education funding. On Monday, the province announced it would spend $800,000 dollars to fund more seats to train community mental health workers at four BC universities including VIU. The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and the MLA for Nanaimo, Sheila Malcolmson says the programs will also benefit those already working in the sector.

"To give those already facing burnout in the sector, to give them that optimism that we've got some fresh, newly trained, energetic young workers on their way to lend their support and make their work more sustainable."
—Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Sheila Malcolmson.

VIU will offer 16 more seats in its spring session for community mental health workers as a result of the new funding.