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Better Farming Ontario Featured Articles

Better Farming Ontario magazine is published 11 times per year. After each edition is published, we share featured articles online.


A mixed response to rural distress lines

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The future of a peer-to-peer crisis support telephone line that serves Ontario's farm community is in question. Debra Pretty-Straathof says that, despite crises within
several of the province's agricultural sectors in recent years, calls to the toll-free Farm Line have dwindled to roughly 60 over the past six months.

"We're not really sure why; we don't know if it's a resignation or – I don't have any way of analyzing why that would be," she says.

Spending money for a service not being used is a point of frustration. "We're discussing with the agriculture ministry what the options would be and how to better serve the rural farm community," says Pretty-Straathof. No decisions have been made, but closing down the service is not an option, she adds.

Susan Klein-Swormink established the line after the 1998 ice storm in eastern Ontario as a confidential service to assist farmers in finding resources to address their situations. She left about two years ago. "It was time to move on," she says.

Some research has shown that although farmers prefer to meet face-to-face to discuss stress issues, they are open to using telephone crisis lines. A pilot program of enhanced crisis services offered in three areas across the province between 2006 and 2008, indicated otherwise. "We thought that we'd try for a utilization (rate) of around one per cent (of the farm populations) in those jurisdictions," says Susan Wells, family services manager for Haldimand-Norfolk REACH counseling service. The pilot was a joint effort between REACH and the Farm Line.

"We didn't even meet a quarter of that."

Pretty-Straathof says farmers may be making use of rural-based distress lines. Queen's Bush Rural Ministry, is one of these. The non-denominational, church-sponsored confidential information referral service reaches out to farmers in Grey, Bruce, Huron, Perth, Simcoe and Oxford counties.

Alex Leith, the service's co-ordinator and a beef farmer, says it's expanding to meet an anticipated rise in demand. With all of the changes in farming, stress may increase, he says. Farms are getting bigger, the process of obtaining financing is getting more complicated and farm debt is building.

"If interest rates go to double digits again, it'll have a dramatic impact on the farm community, I'm sure," he says.

Brent Ross, a spokesman for the Ontario agriculture ministry, says there are 19 Ontario Distress Centres, which are available to assist individuals who are experiencing distress or more severe mental health issues. These centres provide counselling and referral services as well as crisis intervention services, usually 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In addition, the ministry's regional resource centres offer brochures outlining regional resources for advisory and financial programs. The centres also offer fact sheets on coping with stress, financial analysis and individual programs. BF

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