Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Feb 05/01) - Gloria Kraft and Helen Croze wanted to offer Yellowknifers with mental illness another option.
Four years ago, they adapted the "clubhouse model" to Northern needs and The Independent Clubhouse was born.
 Gloria Kraft (left) and Helen Croze |
Helen Croze: I don't know if I could do this with anyone else. What I don't have, she has. And visa versa.
Gloria Kraft: I wouldn't trust anyone else. You're involved with large quantities of money.
YellowknifeLife: You knew each other in Calgary, before moving up to the North two decades ago?
Croze: We worked together in Calgary. We've been friends for over 22 years. And we worked at the territorial treatment centre together.
YellowknifeLife: And how does that trust come in when dealing with members of the Clubhouse? Is that trust important there too?
Croze: Very, very important. We're sort of like a family here. Some say we're like the mother they didn't have. We're very member-oriented. If they want something, we talk. If we can change it, we will. There's a pre-conceived idea that some of these people don't think. And they do. So sometimes they need help with forms - we all do.
Kraft: We all need help with different things.
YellowknifeLife: You are advocates? You work on their behalf?
HC & Kraft: Absolutely.
YellowknifeLife: Where do you find you have to put the most energy when it comes to the members and advocating for them?
Kraft: A whole bunch of things. The biggest issue here is Income Support - a big issue for most of the members. Some of the members are very ill and the forms are very stressful, so we work closely. We've gone to dentists and lawyers. We sat for three days in court for one of our members. Each year they get stronger.
YellowknifeLife: So your role is to help make them stronger?
Croze: It's got to be. To help them become self-sufficient.
Kraft: I want everybody in this Clubhouse to be able to say, to anyone, I am an individual and I have an illness called Bi-polar disorder, for example. And not have everyone run from them. I would like to see all the 252 people get together and go down to the Leg and make changes that way.
YellowknifeLife: When you close the door here at the Clubhouse, does that door stay closed?
Croze: Sometimes no. If we were to have a call on suicide, it would come home with us. And during the night, I wouldn't sleep because I wouldn't know about tomorrow morning. I might get the call that he killed himself. Even though the onus would be on him to go to the hospital but still...
YellowknifeLife: You still feel like you could or should do something?
Kraft: Even though you're trying not to treat it personally, you are going to be affected. We have relationships with these people.
Croze: They trust us. To lose one of them, for me personally, it would be earth shattering.
YellowknifeLife: That's never happened?
Kraft: No. We've lost members, but they've died from natural causes. The statistics prove that once you've joined the Clubhouse, you do not go into the hospital.
YellowknifeLife: How did you develop an interest in mental illness?
Kraft: There's mental illness in my family. That's why I was interested. My brother, I'm sure. But he was never diagnosed. My mother, too. That's why I push: diagnose, diagnose. Once you're diagnosed, it's easier to get help. You can deal with it.
Croze: I've always loved that field.
YellowknifeLife: Why?
Croze: Because it's challenging. A person will come here. His self-esteem is shot. When they come here, they're really shattered. Working day by day with these people to try and put them back into the work force again. Yes, you can do this. You CAN do this. And watch their self-esteem rise to where they have a job. It's happened four or five times that we've done this.
YellowknifeLife: Since opening the Clubhouse four years ago, have you noticed any changes regarding mental illness?
Croze: All the agencies work together now. They have to. They have to work together. We'll work with any agency. And there's good things happening, like the health care package with Income Support. I think it's a marvellous thing for Income Support to do that. We work with Home Care, we work with Psych (psychiatric department at Stanton Regional Hospital).
Kraft: Health. Health has their needle program over here. Every Monday morning people with mental illnesses get their needles and meds over here. Anywhere else, that wouldn't happen. Small steps to us, but big steps for the members.
YellowknifeLife: So what keeps you from getting depressed, going crazy?
Kraft: Our home is very private. We don't bring anyone into it. When we go home on the weekends, we do not talk about the Clubhouse. And that was very difficult in the beginning. Still sometimes it is. So we have to debrief with people we trust.
YellowknifeLife: So an all-around healthy lifestyle?
Kraft: Yes. See what (the members) don't realize is that ... well they all think we're in our forties. We're close to our sixties.
Croze: But you have to be well. And you have to have that holiday. You have to have a break, get out of Yellowknife.
Kraft: We take a month. Two weeks to come down. And the last two weeks you're really yourself, having fun, and you come back refreshed.
YellowknifeLife: Do you ever get sick of each other? Feel like saying, "OK, I'm outta here?"
Croze: Sometimes we don't talk to each other. Because it's talk, talk, talk, every day, talk, talk, talk.
Kraft: But we understand each other. We're more like sisters than anything.
