United Way East Ontario is partnering with the Ottawa Rape Crisis Centre (ORCC) to meet rising mental health needs among people over the age of 16 who have experienced gender-based violence.
Due to increased demand, Valerie Waters, a Registered Psychotherapist at ORCC, said clients can wait up to 18 months for individual counselling services, but thanks to United Way, those folks are now getting some help in the interim.
“The Widening the Window of Tolerance program is aimed at helping our clients develop the self-compassion, self-care skills, and emotion-regulation tools that they need in order to get the most out of their individual counselling services,” Valerie explained.
This group program allows participants to build awareness of their stress signals—to work toward discovering their “window of tolerance.” Psychotherapists like Valerie then give participants tools to begin processing their trauma and expanding their capacity for stress and emotions.
Putting folks on a path to thrive
We spoke with a past participant of the ORCC’s Widening the Window of Tolerance program who requested to remain anonymous.
This person told us they are a sexual assault survivor who struggled with substance use.
“I found that a huge part of my healing is to be in a group with other people who have similar experiences to me,” they said. “I get to hear their lived experiences, the different ways that they take care of themselves, and some of what I heard from other participants I took away for myself.”
For them, the program was more than just discovering what their window of tolerance was. It was also about learning what they could do in their daily life to achieve what they want within that window.
“Today I’m using some of the things that I learned during the programming, and it may be small things but, in my life, it’s making a huge impact.”
Partnership key to changing lives
Support from United Way allows ORCC to take the time they need to develop programs specifically tailored to needs and requests from the population they serve.
“Partnerships like the one with United Way give me hope that we can move away from disjointed and siloed services, into something that is more flexible, more adaptive and more responsive to what people need.”
At United Way, we believe no one should have to wait for help when life feels heavy.
Chances are, you know someone struggling with common, increasing, or dire mental health challenges. You can help people get the support they need when they need it.
When you give to United Way East Ontario, you connect your neighbours with timely, accessible, and culturally appropriate mental health, addictions, and crisis care.
