Community Power: How Galiano Stepped Up for Mental Health

The GHCS Board and staff care deeply about making sure everyone on our island has access to high quality mental health care. There is no question that these services matter, and maintaining and extending them is a priority for us, and for Galiano residents.

After we informed the community of the disastrous elimination of the 2025 grants to support our nursing and mental health outreach, there was a tremendous show of support in the form of donations which enabled us to continue these services, at least in part, as we sought permanent funding. The Society has in fact been partially successful in this, achieving through the primary care network process confirmation of permanent funding for a half time clinic nurse.

We are hopeful of achieving a similar success for the mental health social work position (though work on this has been delayed by the GEU strike). Meanwhile, we are extremely grateful for the generous support of the community for our targeted mental health fund raising efforts at the Dog Show and the September 27, 2025 40th Anniversary celebration.

Funds raised are sufficient to continue mental health outreach through the next several months as we work together on establishing a secure base for this work.

As always, we will keep you posted.
Thank you to everyone who has reached out in support.