Montérégie health fair showcases bilingual services

Three years in and the Health Promotion Fair is still going strong.

Forty-five community and public health network partners gathered at the Brossard Sociocultural Centre with the aim to promote bilingual services.

Assistance and Referral Centre (ARC) president Sandra Power helped organize the event.

“A lot of the times we’re looking for help in different areas,” Power said. “Whether it’s mental health, elderly, youth, families and this is really an opportunity for us to showcase what is easily available to them in English.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "A lot of the times we're looking for help in different areas," Power said. "Whether it's mental health, elderly, youth, families and this is really an opportunity for us to showcase what is easily available to them in English."

ARC is a non-profit organization with the aim of connecting south shore residents with bilingual health services.

The organization is especially helpful for families in need of specific services for kids with special needs, senior care and mental health.

In 2011, Collin Coole helped create ARC.

Before ARC, English language services existed but they were harder to find.

“There were many very highly qualified organizations serving in their specific sectors,” Coole said. “But then collectively they didn’t necessarily have a link and we connected the dots.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "There were many very highly qualified organizations serving in their specific sectors," Coole said. "But then collectively they didn't necessarily have a link and we connected the dots."

Since establishing themselves ARC has gained in popularity but there is still much work to be done.

Easier access to bilingual health services should be the norm, not the exception.

READ MORE: Senior claims she was yelled at for requesting English services at Verdun Hospital

Even if traditional Anglophone communities are becoming bilingual there is still a need for English language services.

“We have large incoming cultural communities, new arrivals, refugees and consequently English is often their second language which they choose to get their health and social services,” Coole said.

There is a solution that would help elevate the state of bilingual services and that is education.

New Frontiers School Board is making an effort to create a bilingual workforce, according to spokesperson Chuck Halliday.

“We have three health-care oriented programs,” Halliday said. “So our goal is to try and recruit as many people from the territory to end up working in the network that we see here today to try and be bilingual.”

While efforts are being made to gather bilingual resources, the question remains whether or not languages will ever stop being an issue in Quebec health services.