Chapters:

00:00 Introduction
01:52 What is Sanctuary
04:18 The Three Pillars of Sanctuary
06:32 How the Sanctuary course works
13:20 The history and make up of the Youth Series
20:57 Stressors in life
24:46 Resilience and connection
34:25 The Mental Health Continuum
47:09 How a session is broken down
50:42 What makes a good facilitator
56:13 The potential of inserting the Youth Series into the Catholic school curriculum
1:04:27 The importance of language
1:16:32 Outro

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In this episode of Catholic Education Matters, host Troy welcomes Bryana Russell from Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries, a Vancouver-based ministry focused on equipping the Church to support mental health and wellbeing. Bryana shares Sanctuary’s mission to make the church a safe and supportive space for individuals facing mental health challenges by combining theology, psychology, and lived experience. Originating from the personal tragedy of a founder, the initiative now operates globally, offering a free, film-based course — the Sanctuary Course — and a new youth series that launched in January 2025. These resources are designed to equip parishes with practical tools to foster understanding, reduce stigma, and promote compassionate dialogue around mental health. The program emphasizes accessibility, flexibility, and the importance of listening well within faith communities.

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to Catholic Education Matters, the podcast that celebrates the beauty of Catholic education, highlighting excellence in academics, athletics, and the transformative power of faith. Join us as we share the stories of those making a lasting impact on Catholic education. Let’s begin.
[00:00:23] Troy Van Vliet: Good day, everybody. Thank you for joining us here today for Catholic Matters, and I am so excited. I’ve been anticipating this for a long time to have Bryana Russell here from Sanctuary.
[00:00:37] Bryana Russell: Thanks for having
[00:00:38] Troy Van Vliet: And thank you so much for coming, and I’m really I am been looking forward to this conversation. We’ve had many conversations in the past about sanctuary and the good that it’s doing. I was introduced to it last summer, knew absolutely nothing about it. And I got hoodwinked by Murray Neilson, a friend of both of us to come to this retreat out on Keats Island at Barnabas, is an incredible facility. And I was introduced to Sanctuary and what it was all about there. And wow, I was blown up. I was impressed to say the least.
[00:01:22] Bryana Russell: Oh, you were such a good participant Troy. You asked all the right questions and you showed up in such a leaned in way. It was really helpful.
[00:01:29] Troy Van Vliet: Okay, well they were all honest questions because of course I didn’t know anything about the sanctuary. So here we are today and I get to ask you the same kind of questions and torture you some more.
[00:01:39] Bryana Russell: I’m more rehearsed now. Hopefully, fingers crossed.
[00:01:43] Troy Van Vliet: So would you do the honor of telling us about Sanctuary? Tell everybody that’s watching what is Sanctuary all about? Where did it come from?
[00:01:51] Bryana Russell: Well, I think I want to start just with a little bit of joy that we are a Vancouver based ministry that is now a global movement. So we started here in Vancouver, our roots are in Vancouver, although we all work remotely, most of our staff is here Vancouver. So that’s my little piece of joy there that we feel really connected to this archdiocese and to the churches here in this city. Sanctuary, our mission really is to equip the church to support mental health and well-being. If we were looking at our vision, we would probably say that we can imagine the church being the safest place for a person to experience a mental health challenge.
[00:02:25] What does that mean, really? Well, it means that no harm would come to them, that they would be supported, that they would be accompanied, that they would have companionship, and that they would know deep down when they’re experiencing something that is hard, because life throws hard things at us, that the church is with them, and God is with them. And the church plays a vital role in supporting them and walking alongside them as they experience that. So that’s really our vision for the church. And thankfully, I think people really want to lean into that vision with us.
[00:02:56] And so we have resources that are all free to use on our website. And our primary resource is the Sanctuary Course, which we have the Sanctuary Course and the Sanctuary Course for Catholics. And they’ve been used in 92 countries worldwide, translated into five languages. And yeah, all born here in Vancouver.
[00:03:16] Troy Van Vliet: That is amazing. Absolutely amazing. Yeah. When we talk about mental health, and I think you maybe described it as this before in terms of how it was introduced to the church didn’t really have a formal way of helping people with mental health issues other than, know, well, let’s revert to your faith and pray and offer it up your sufferings and all those types of things. So this is kind of a way to educate people, not just people that are suffering from mental health issues, but other parishioners or people that want our family members that want to support those or just know more about and how they can be supportive throughout a mental health crisis.
[00:04:05] So can you speak more about that in terms of where it came from? Like, you know, it came from this void in the market, so to speak. Exactly. Then now it’s being filled with sanctuaries.
[00:04:17] Bryana Russell: Yeah. It really came from personal experience. So when we talk about the work that we do, we think of it with three pillars. And that is to have robust theology around mental health. What is that?
[00:04:28] How do we understand where God is present in this conversation? A really deep understanding of it from a psychological standpoint. So who are our experts? What is the newest data based research and data evidence around this? And then finally, the last one is where we were rooted, and that’s in lived experience.
[00:04:48] So Sanctuary began from the lived experience of one of our founders who lost her husband to suicide, and just really wanted to understand how the church could step into this place, how they could respond to somebody who was experiencing great pain, but also severe mental illness. How do we understand that in the church? So she began doing it through peer ministry and stepping into church doing training. And then Daniel Whitehead, our CEO came on and had a vision to make this, as he would say, the alpha course for mental health and faith, and to make it more accessible and to really lean into the conversations. So to this day, we stand true to those three pillars, psychology, theology, and lived experience, because we think that that’s the heart of it.

[00:05:30] In lived experience, the church has just entered or is coming out of a season of synodality to listen well, right? And how do we do that in individual parishes? How do we do that in our small groups? How do we do that as parishioners, lady just showing up on Sunday? And one of the things practice those skills of listening well to people in our midst, to attending to their lived experience and to sort of saying there’s no experience that is outside of the church’s care. And that includes mental health and mental illness.
[00:06:02] Troy Van Vliet: Right, right, right. So can you walk us through Excuse me.
[00:06:08] Bryana Russell: That’s a lot.
[00:06:09] Troy Van Vliet: No, no, no. That’s great. Can you walk us through then because like this is being introduced to parishes as we talked about. There’s a youth series as well, which we’ll get into in a little bit. But like a parish, how would this be introduced to a parish?
[00:06:27] What is this like you equated it to like the Alpha Course for mental health. Alpha Course is like an introduction to faith and people in sort of more of a structured way. It’s a great course for anybody to take to expand in their faith. And this is a course also. Can you explain how the course works with the modules, videos, a facilitator, what have you? How does that actually work if a parish is taking on the sanctuary?
[00:06:55.755] Bryana Russell: Yeah, so we try and be as low barrier as possible. So what does that mean? So we are filmed based. So it is an eight session course that are film based that have every session has a story of lived experience. So we practice those listening skills.
[00:07:10] And then we have experts who weigh in on it. So psychologists and theologians, and then there’s discussion questions that come alongside it as well in the facilitator’s guide. So the sanctuary course is intended to be used in small groups. So that could look like a small group that’s just done alpha, or it could look like a group maybe before alpha. One of the pieces that I think can be helpful in understanding its place in a parish would be under the pre evangelization tool.
[00:07:37] So what is a great pain point that people are experiencing right now? I mean, statistically, we know that one in four Canadians is experiencing at this moment a mental health challenge. So if you, I often challenge people on Sunday at Mass. Don’t use your finger. Don’t actually point.
[00:07:52.135] But start counting one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. And then get a sense of who in this room could be experiencing a mental health challenge. Like, we’re not immune from it just because we walk into the church. And there’s a lot of people are experiencing this.
[00:08:05] And if they know that God cares about it, it’s a great tool to invite them into closer relationship with the church and to offer catechesis after that. So I think of it in many ways as a pre evangelization tool for churches to say, if you want to learn more about mental health, your mental health, the mental health of those around you, and where God is in all of this, you could do the sanctuary course. So it’s set up to be contextualized in your environment. We’re really hopeful that people do that, that they actually invite conversation and questions that pertain to where they are and how they understand it. So it’s very feasible to just shift it, to use it in whichever format works best for you.
[00:08:45] Some churches have done it over a weekend. So they’ve done the sanctuary course. Eight
[00:08:49] Troy Van Vliet: sessions. Eight Okay.
[00:08:51] Bryana Russell: They just did a weekend because that’s what they’ve had available for them. Others run it on a weekly basis. And it’s looked like many different things.
[00:08:58] Troy Van Vliet: Right. So is it something is it, let’s say you missed session one and two. Is it something that you can just jump in on and not feel lost? Or do you have to start from the beginning?
[00:09:09] Bryana Russell: I think the first two sessions are quite foundational in your understanding, like what is mental health and what is mental illness. Those are questions that are addressed. So those are pretty pivotal things to enter into the conversation. But anyone can access it online. As I mentioned, it’s free.
[00:09:23] So if you miss the first two, can jump in on session three, just watch the first two at home. They’re about thirty minutes each. So not very arduous either.
[00:09:31] Troy Van Vliet: So then how important is so you’d watch the video. Now do you watch it all the way through and then have questions and chat afterwards? Or do you watch part and then have questions and then start going again? What’s the normal way of
[00:09:45] Bryana Russell: looking Again, would say whatever works for you. We would say contextualize it to what feels comfortable in your setting. And, you know, sometimes you get a group of people who are really enthusiastic and they are, like, chatting and you’re not even halfway through the film. So stop and have a good dialogue and then keep going. Typically, would say you would watch the film in its entirety and then have conversations and prompts.
[00:10:06] Each session also includes an artistic work that can sort of spark conversation. And that’s part of our investment in the arts as conversation starters. So there’s a beautiful piece of art included in each session for reflection as well.
[00:10:21] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Isn’t that interesting? My my youngest daughter, she’s experienced art therapy.
[00:10:30] Bryana Russell: Okay. Yeah.
[00:10:31] Troy Van Vliet: So for different types of things and expressing herself and showing so, which we found to be very fruitful.
[00:10:36] Bryana Russell: Yeah, I love it that it can start conversations in a way that doesn’t feel very intrusive, right? Like we can both be looking at a piece of art and see it very differently and have a very easy conversation about it because it’s just we’re looking at it. And I think we often feel so close to conversations around mental health and mental well-being that it’s harder to just have a conversation without that. I have to tell you everything about what I’m feeling right now. I mean, I have to be right in this.
[00:11:04] But there’s just a way that art brings down those barriers and allows us to enter into a conversation with much more curiosity, which is what we would hope for as we journey together in these conversations.
[00:11:16] Troy Van Vliet: So I haven’t done the course. Seen I’ve seen some of the modules, of course, on the retreat and what have you. And I found them really quite fascinating. Felt that they drew you in. So very interesting topics.
[00:11:38] The modules that were being introduced at the retreat was at last summer. So we’ve had all the success within parishes and churches around the And then it’s like, okay, we need to bring this down to another level to where, I guess, mental health begins, which is in our youth.
[00:12:03] Bryana Russell: Yeah.
[00:12:04] Troy Van Vliet: And getting them to start talking about it, to realize it, and I guess to break down the barriers and the stigmas that go along with it. Yeah. Potentially that do. There’s been much talk of mental health over the last few years. But just the awareness is not enough.
[00:12:23] You need sort of those practical approaches to, or at least that’s what I think.
[00:12:29] Bryana Russell: No, you’re right.

[00:12:30] Troy Van Vliet: Quick study choice. Practical approach is actually dealing with it. Because if you don’t necessarily have mental illness or you don’t think you do.
[00:12:41] Bryana Russell: And
[00:12:42] Troy Van Vliet: but you’re around others that do or claim to have that you don’t know how to deal with it.
[00:12:50] Bryana Russell: You don’t
[00:12:51] Troy Van Vliet: necessarily, you don’t know how to give the proper support or and there’s a fine line between giving support and joining them at the rail, so to speak, which you don’t necessarily, it’s not necessarily the right thing either. The Course kind of gets everybody involved.
[00:13:10] Bryana Russell: Yeah. So maybe I’ll start a little further back in the history of the Youth series, if that’s helpful to give the full picture of what we’re hoping to do with it. It just launched in January, so it’s really fresh and we’re really excited about The U series just launched in January, but it’s been years of work. So we began in the summer of twenty twenty. So this is the way God works, I find.
[00:13:34] Visions and then all of a sudden all the building blocks are in place and you’re like, Oh, this is fascinating. So myself and some of my colleagues are all graduates of Regent College, the evangelical seminary here in Vancouver. And one woman who had come from Australia to do her theological studies there had already a master’s in counseling and she’d been a youth pastor for quite a long time. She ended up working for Sanctuary just in a smaller capacity. And one day Dan said to her, and I think maybe the programs team led by our wonderful Jane Bourne said, would you consider doing something for youth because we know there’s a need.
[00:14:11] So globally, we know that the pandemic had an incredible effect on the mental well-being of our young people. But prior to that, what’s staggering is in The US, they noticed between the years 2010 and 2019, pardon me, a fifty percent increase in young people with anxiety and depression. Wow. Fifty percent between 2010 and 2019. That’s pre
[00:14:39] Troy Van Vliet: I’ve got a hunch on what was causing that or what fed into it. But anyway,
[00:14:43] Bryana Russell: we all probably have an inkling. And there’s some really great resources out there, The Anxious Generation, if you’ve read that book. It’s a great read. But we noticed this, we knew that there was a need. And so we approached Amy and she said, I’m not the person to write this.
[00:15:00] This is not for me. You know, her heart softened. And she began by doing some research for us. And so she, we did primary research and we reached out to a lot of young people over 200 and said, you know, what are your main questions about God and mental health? And we began to see some themes emerging that have created the outline for the course and now the course in its entirety.
[00:15:23] Again, eight sessions based on these questions that young people asked. But what was so interesting is like the testimony of one young guy who was like, I have grown up in the church. I’ve been there every Sunday. I did Sunday school. I did youth group.
[00:15:35] I did all these extracurricular activities, probably things akin to sacramental prep. And I have not once heard mention of mental health and well-being in the church. He’s like, why not? Why don’t we talk about it? And I think we noticed the urgency there because young people are desperate to talk about it.
[00:15:57] Springtide Research Institute says that the number one conversation that needs to be had to do youth ministry well today is to include conversations about mental health and well-being.
[00:16:08] Troy Van Vliet: Wow.
[00:16:09] Bryana Russell: It’s the number one thing that young people want to talk about in youth ministry. So, if we’re not talking about it, why is it? And we could probably think about why those things are, Troy. Like we could think, well, if we think of mental health and mental illness as a problem to be solved, it’s not the church’s problem to solve it, right? That’s why we have therapists.
[00:16:27] That’s why we have psychiatrists. That’s why we have psychologists. But what if mental health wasn’t a problem to be solved? What if mental health and well-being was an experience of being truly human that needs to be incorporated into our faith.
[00:16:43] Troy Van Vliet: Oh, I like that.
[00:16:45] Bryana Russell: Right? If we come back to Catholic education, what’s the importance of Catholic education? Well, it’s based that in a Catholic anthropology, which means we minister to the whole person, right? So we have spiritual formation, we have human formation, we have social formation, there’s an intellectual formation, all of that is part of what Catholic education should look like. And so if we stop seeing mental health as a problem to be solved, then we can start talking about it in the church as part of our experience, and as part of our experience of our faith when God shows up and when we know God, and when we recognize him in our midst.

[00:17:23] So in these conversations with youth we were like something has to be done and again Amy’s heart softened and, she did secondary research she saw the need and what was fascinating was that we are the only like it sounds like tooting our own horn. And maybe that’s my job. So maybe I will I will a little bit. Tune away. Tune away.
[00:17:43] There are a lot of resources out there in this day and age. It seems like we’re always talking about mental health and well-being. Yeah. I don’t know that we are. But I do know that for youth, we are the only resource currently that is about mental health and faith that is film based for young people.
[00:18:00] So hitting them in the medium that they’re accustomed to
[00:18:03] Troy Van Vliet: Yes. Yes.
[00:18:03] Bryana Russell: For a topic that they want to talk about.
[00:18:06] Troy Van Vliet: Well, it’s funny how you were saying it. It’s not something that I grew up with in terms of that wasn’t talked about. There was I mean, school counselors today are that’s a major, major role. Whereas when I was growing up and going through school, you didn’t have somebody that was a designated counselor on school staff. Whereas today you do.
[00:18:30] So, I mean, recognized. Absolutely. But I could see once again, you know, some kids even maybe not wanting to approach the counselor because it’s like, oh, I don’t want to be the problem kid. Exactly. So, what sanctuary does, if it’s something that is put out to all kids, whether you got issues or
[00:18:56] Bryana Russell: you don’t, or
[00:18:57] Troy Van Vliet: whether you think you do or you don’t, it’s something that it sort of breaks down those barriers so that people just feel free talk about.
[00:19:03] Bryana Russell: Absolutely. You are a quick study. So could be doing the pitch here.
[00:19:08] Troy Van Vliet: No, because I’m about to torture you with I’m
[00:19:10] Bryana Russell: ready for it. I think I just want to add to that. So when we distill down the questions that young people are asking, it’s probably helpful to name those because those are the eight sessions now. So it was what’s good about mental health? Mhmm.
[00:19:23] So this is already like a shift in perspective because when we talk about it often, it’s like, Oh, mental health, you know, what’s wrong with you? But what’s good about mental health? And how do we understand it in a more complete way? What does the Bible say about mental health? One of the activities that I see some churches doing now is diagnosing biblical characters with psychiatric illnesses or mental health, mental illnesses.
[00:19:48] And I think, I don’t know that that’s such a great practice. But what can we glean from the Bible? Like, how do we understand the Psalms? How do we understand Job’s suffering? Yeah.
[00:19:58] You know,
[00:19:58] Troy Van Vliet: I was just Job was going through my mind
00:20:00] Bryana Russell: as you said Exactly like, how do we understand that? Yep. Another question that they asked was, why do I feel this way? So the why question. What happens when we talk about mental health challenges?
[00:20:13] So this is, were asking the same question as you, Troy. What happens when we talk about this? Are we fanning the flame? If you have a mental health challenge, can you get better? Where’s the hope?
[00:20:25] How can I help my friend? Which again is backed up by evidence, We know that seventy percent of young people are willing to talk to their friends about mental health challenges, whereas only fifty I think it’s fifty four percent, maybe fact check me there, but it’s fifty four percent are willing to talk to an adult. So that discrepancy, you know, is significant. And then how do I take care of my mental
[00:20:50] Troy Van Vliet: health? So
[00:20:52] Bryana Russell: they know what they’re experiencing and they know what they want. A hope they know and they know they want to understand why they’re feeling this and then what to do with it. So those were the questions that came out of the research.
[00:21:03] Troy Van Vliet: Wow. We all have stressors in life. Without them, we don’t grow. In my humble opinion anyway, to say with growing muscle, with physical health. You know, and I hate to say mental health.
[00:21:21] I never really got my head wrapped around that. Why are we calling it mental health? You can have good mental health. You can have mental health challenges as well.
[00:21:30] Bryana Russell: Just like you can have good physical health and you can have a physical illness.
[00:21:35] Troy Van Vliet: So, of the wording I think maybe needs to be adjusted in conversation when people are talking about it. It’s like, well, I’ve got mental health when we all have mental health. It’s either great or maybe not so good or just cruising along
[00:21:48] Bryana Russell: or whatever.
[00:21:49] Troy Van Vliet: So, maybe some of that terminology might be able to be adjusted in, like I said, in conversations. I had concerns when I was introduced to it. And where my concerns lied and they were innocent in the sense that the word mental health or those terms gets thrown out there. And what we don’t what I was concerned about is kids, adults, anybody that would start using the term mental health or I’ve got mental health issues as a crutch. Whereas you described it earlier on in our conversation as well.
[00:22:36]
These are challenges. It doesn’t mean it ends there. Are challenges in life that you continue on with. Because it’s, you know, there’s terminology that gets thrown around where people say, well, I’m feeling triggered. It’s like, well, we all feel triggered, you know, at some point or something, something triggers us or whatever.
[00:22:56] It doesn’t mean you’re different than anybody else. How you deal with it or how you’re handling it might be different. And maybe we need to help you out with that. So I guess my concern was we don’t want to build this generation of lack of forgive my term here, but a lack of, you know, a generation of wimpy people that just can’t handle any sort of stressors in life because that’s not going to change. Since the beginning of time, Wars and people have experienced horrific things.
[00:23:35] Bryana Russell: Absolutely.
[00:23:35] Troy Van Vliet: But we are also a resilient, you know, being that we got to also learn to carry on. That doesn’t mean this is the end because of what we’re going through today. I mean, I’m going through challenges all the time. And this isn’t a pat on the back. It’s just like, I have no choice.
[00:23:54] Got to carry on. Yeah. You know, when we all experience that. Yeah. So, I expressed my concern.
[00:24:00] Yeah. And I believe it was my questions were answered really well during the sanctuary retreat. But maybe you can enlighten us again here today. Just to ensure some of the people that are watching to say, look, yeah, that’s not what we’re here to do. We’re not here to create a bunch of this world of victims.

[00:24:21] Bryana Russell: Yeah.
[00:24:22] Troy Van Vliet: Because we’re all victims of something. Yeah. But you know, how we react to it and how we move on. It doesn’t mean we’re a victim forever. It’s not a label that we have for the rest of our lives.
[00:24:30] This is something we experienced. Like Job, you know, these horrible things just kept happening over and over again, and he learned to embrace them and thank God for them. Yeah. For him to be made stronger and carry on. Yeah. So anyway, now now I have rambling.
[00:24:45] Bryana Russell: No. No. Love it.
[00:24:46] Troy Van Vliet: Let
[00:24:46] Bryana Russell: me And I wanted to I mean, I think I probably use very different terms than you. I think we’ve talked about this, know, like, yeah, I think the language I would shift a little bit. But then there’s quite a few points in there that that we include in our course. And my first question, and I didn’t ask you this before, but I would ask you, what do you think is the number one contributor to resilience?
[00:25:12] Troy Van Vliet: The number one contributor to resilience. That’s a good question. Well, without a stressor, you can become more resilient. Am I going down the right?
[00:25:24] Bryana Russell: Yeah, but even with a stressor, like what would help build resilience in a stressful situation?
[00:25:31] Troy Van Vliet: Perspective?
[00:25:31] Bryana Russell: Perspective. Yeah. That’s actually I will accept that answer. Okay. If only to say that one of the best ways to get perspective is if you and I climb a mountain together, and we’re stood at the top and we’re both looking out, our viewpoints will be side by side, but they will be different perspectives.
[00:25:49] Troy Van Vliet: Yes.
[00:25:50] Bryana Russell: And so how do we grow our perspective? It’s usually by inviting somebody to look at the same view with us. Right? Like it grows our horizon. So one of the greatest ways of building resilience is through connection.
[00:26:05] There’s a great psychologist who says that safety is not the absence of threat, it’s the presence of connection. And when we think about resilience and what it means, we know that young people who experience connection to a trustworthy adult are seventy six percent likely, or seventy six percent of them suggests that they are experiencing flourishing in their lives. And I’ll return to that language of flourishing in a minute. But if they have a good strong connection, they’re much more likely to report experiencing flourishing in their mental health. So connection is key to resilience.
[00:26:44] Troy Van Vliet: Perfect sense.
[00:26:45] Bryana Russell: Right? It’s not an absence of threat. It’s not anything like that. But how do you create connection? Well, quite often it’s through conversations, right?
[00:26:53] It’s being able to talk about what you’re experiencing and knowing that someone is with you in that experience. And so whilst it may seem that if we allow young people to talk about their mental health, we’re sort of lighting a fire of saying, yeah, you can use this as a cop out for anything, but we’re not. What we’re actually doing is trying to create greater connection. And the connection creates greater resilience. And I’m going to go old school here and throw back to an Old Testament.
[00:27:21] Okay. A significant, in my opinion, but in the grand scheme of salvation history, she doesn’t get a big she doesn’t get a big name, but it’s Hagar. So Sarah and Abraham’s slave, who Abraham impregnated when Sarah was unable to conceive a child. And she is used and abused. And she is just a product, right?
[00:27:43] She is a child bearer. She doesn’t have any other purpose in the story. And she escapes because she’s being abused out into the wilderness. So she risks almost certain death with the wilderness rather than stay there and bear this child and be subject to the abuse of Sarah, her master. And when she gets to this stream of living water, the angel of the lord appears to her and he asks her two questions.
[00:28:03] He says, where have you come from and where are you going? And this piece always gets me, Troy, because I get a little indignant for like Hagar. She sat there and she’s experiencing such suffering and such trauma and abuse. And he says, where you come where have you come from? She answers that.
[00:28:20] She can’t answer where she’s going. And so he tells her where she’s going, and it’s that she will go back to bear a donkey of a son who will, strike heads against everyone. There is no promise that things are gonna get better to Hagar. The only thing that she is reassured of is God’s presence. She’s sent back into that icky, hard, tough situation, but with the promise of God’s presence.
[00:28:45] How do we create resilience? Well, it’s often the reminder that God is with us. How did Job continue? The reminder that God was with him.
[00:28:52] Troy Van Vliet: And
[00:28:53] Bryana Russell: so when we’re talking about this with young people, it’s not to not talk about it, it’s to talk about it and then say, look, maybe you are experiencing a mental health challenge right now. Or maybe you have been diagnosed with a mental illness. But here’s what we know to be true. That is not who you are. Who you are is a beloved child of God.
[00:29:12] What you are experiencing is a mental health challenge, but it has no indication on how you were made or the purpose for which you were made. And so that in itself isn’t creating a generation of victims. It’s actually creating a generation of young people who can identify, yeah, truly as who they were intended to be and with greater resilience for the hard stuff that life will throw at them. Because inevitably, as you and I both know, it’s gonna get hard.
[00:29:38] Troy Van Vliet: It’s gonna get hard. And it just keeps getting harder. When you think it’s gonna get easier.
[00:29:43] Bryana Russell: It doesn’t.
[00:29:43] Troy Van Vliet: So you can only prepare yourself, arm yourself for the challenges that are coming. Why are kids faced with a lot? Why don’t they have those adult allies? I keep saying, you know what, we’ve, as a Western society, which was built on Judeo Christian values, there has been a fall away from the church. And when the church gets sort of set aside, then the family gets set aside.
[00:30:15] And there was more families that broken up and kids growing up without fathers or without mothers or what have you or mixed, you know. And so they’re questioning so many things. They haven’t even got that as that home base that they can count on for, you know, all of the support. And then we see it in our And schools sometimes are the only support that they have. So, with kids knowing that they have allies out there with a program like Sanctuary, it’s filling a void.
[00:30:51] It’s sad that those voids are more abundant today. Getting back to when you said, like, was it from 2010 till ’19? Kids are bombarded with, well, of all, more broken families, number one. And then what’s filling there is these things, these phones and whatever information good or bad is coming through here. And social media has not been friendly to kids.
[00:31:19] And growing up, they’ve just been handed these tools to say here, go do what you want, say what you want, make it anonymous or make it you whatever you want to do. Here’s your avatar. Here’s you just go ahead and without any instruction, without any rules, without any supervision. And we’ve just thrown these kids to the world, to the walls, you know, sink or swim.

[00:31:41] Bryana Russell: I think that I would only add to that to say that the absence of conversations of how to navigate
[00:31:49] Troy Van Vliet: this, and
[00:31:51] Bryana Russell: the absence of being able to say this is what you’re experiencing. It’s very different than what I experienced. I remember when I got my first email, this is aging me, but like I was at boarding school with the Ursaline sisters in Prelate Saskatchewan and we finally had access to email but it came through our teachers account. Didn’t have individual email accounts. Remember that and navigating that and thinking how can they tell me what they want to tell me through do we need to create a code because the teacher’s gonna read it.
[00:32:18] I mean, was a whole conversation then. I don’t know what my two teenagers are experiencing now. And but I want to learn with them. I want to accompany them in it. And that’s the premise of our work in mental health too, is that we actually want to come alongside and have these conversations and enter into it, not just to dispel it and say, gosh, it’d be so much better if you didn’t have this.
[00:32:40] Yeah. It would. Yeah. But how do I walk alongside you in it? And I might not have the answers because I’m not experiencing it for the first time like you are.
[00:32:50] But I can offer you my presence and my promise to be with you as you navigate it. Yeah. And there’s that connection piece again, which offers resilience, right?
[00:32:59] Troy Van Vliet: Absolutely. Yeah. Does the course for kids, the youth version, does it talk about social media at all?
[00:33:10] Bryana Russell: Not specifically, no.
[00:33:12] Troy Van Vliet: But would it give in your opinion, tools and how to handle? Well, I guess issues that may come up from social media?
[00:33:20] Bryana Russell: Yeah, I think one of the things is, as I mentioned, how do I be a good friend? I think one of the things that social media has done for our young people is redefine friendship. So what does friendship look like? It looks like a like or a heart on your social media feed. That’s not really the basis of good friendship or deep friendship.
[00:33:41] And so how do I be, how can I help a friend with mental health challenges is actually, it’s that subtle response to the problems that we’re experiencing in those places to actually readdress it in a different way? So, in a positive way, how do I be a good friend? And that does so much for mental health and well-being for young people as well. I think it would be interesting, Troy, I’m just going back because I feel like I skipped one of the other things that’s really helpful to resilience. Would it be okay to just go back that for a second?
[00:34:14] Of course. I feel like we’re we’re having such a good conversation as we did on the phone. Just want it to be trackable for the listeners. One of the things that we rely on a lot in our work is, what we call or what is called the mental health continuum. Because you were talking about like mental health, people use that word as sort of like a throwaway.
[00:34:34] What does it really mean? And if we understood it as a great equalizer, how do we understand it then in the context of periods of languishing or flourishing? So, it’s based on the work of a psychologist and sociologist Doctor. Corey Keyes. And what he did is he wanted to look at the positive experiences and sort of moments of like living life well for people who had been diagnosed with severe depression and for people who had no mental illness diagnosis.
[00:35:05] So he wanted to look at those two different groups. And what he found was quite surprising. He found that people who had been diagnosed with severe mental or severe depression, pardon me, could experience just as many, if not more positive feelings in life, life is going well, than the group who had received no formal diagnosis. And why is that? Well, it’s because they had the mechanisms in place to cope with life.
[00:35:34] So whether that be medication and therapy, or a good system of support, so people who understood them, they probably had good self care practices. So knowing that I can put away my phone and not stare at it, not scroll, doomschool, is that what they
[00:35:49] Troy Van Vliet: call it? Yeah.
[00:35:50] Bryana Russell: That’s what kids are calling it these days. All of those practices were put in place that allowed them to flourish. Whereas people who had no diagnosis of mental illness at all, didn’t have all those supports in place, hadn’t practiced resiliency or built up resiliency by knowing self care practices or asking for help or being well supported in their church community. And so they had less positive experience. So what he did is he created this continuum, where we have flourishing and languishing with or without mental illness.
[00:36:24] And the beauty of that continuum is to be able to say that every single human being is somewhere on that continuum. And throughout life, people will shift. And what’s so important about extending that understanding to young people is that if I’m in a season of languishing, it can feel like forever, like with or without diagnosed illness. It can feel like this is what my life is going to be. But isn’t it helpful to notice that there can be somebody who is flourishing?
[00:36:54] Isn’t it wonderful to know that my friend who experienced this two months ago is now experiencing just ease of going with the flow right now? And so the ability to tell our stories and to allow young people to have these conversations is to find themselves on the continuum, but also to see where they could be on the continuum and to know that it shifts throughout life. So, as I mentioned earlier to you off mic, one of the worries is that we can pathologize all mental health languishing experiences. Right? So my boyfriend just broke up with me.
[00:37:30] I have finals coming up. It’s been a really hard season, our volleyball team lost. I’m feeling really low. Oh, you must be depressed. Perhaps you’re experiencing depression, but we don’t need to pathologize it.
[00:37:45] We don’t need to judge it by the symptoms. We can say life is hard, but look, you’ll flourishing again. Just look into a new season. So that continuum for us is really crucial that we impart that knowledge to young people because it sets them up to see again that whole picture. That they can flourish and languish.
[00:38:04] Troy Van Vliet: And differentiate between the two.
[00:38:05] Bryana Russell: And differentiate between the two.
[00:38:07] Troy Van Vliet: That they’re not.
[00:38:11] Bryana Russell: And it can be hard without mental illness and it can be good with mental illness. Right? Like it’s both and, and there’s space in it for all of it.
[00:38:20] Troy Van Vliet: Right. Right. Yeah. And how difficult is it for kids to differentiate between the two? Like what is depressed?
[00:38:32] Well, I guess they need, they’ve got to be shown that.
[00:38:34] Bryana Russell: They got to know both, right?
[00:38:36] Troy Van Vliet: They’ve got to be taught that, well, this too shall pass. Or woah, yeah, I feel horrible and there’s no reason for me to feel horrible. This isn’t good. I got to get some support here. So, they got to be able to distinguish between that.
[00:38:54] And like you said, the volleyball loss and my boyfriend’s gone and I’ve got exams. Sounds like a conversation in my house.
[00:39:03] Bryana Russell: I have all boys. So, the conversation is a little different. But it is. It’s true to be able to see that because once we can contextualize what we’re experiencing and know that it is all in the realm of normal, it reduces a lot of stigma. So you were asking how do we make sure that these kids are created to be resilient?
[00:39:24] Like, how do we how do we teach that resilience? Well, one of it is is to decrease self stigma. To say, oh, this isn’t like I’ve been languishing for a long time now.
[00:39:34] Troy Van Vliet: And
[00:39:35] Bryana Russell: I think maybe I need more help than what I’m getting.
[00:39:37] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:39:38] Bryana Russell: But it’s okay because I know even if I do need to seek outside help, I know that I can still languish, or I can still flourish, pardon me. Yeah, I think it’s really key that we give them that full picture of what they’re experiencing.
[00:39:52] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. It’s difficult for being the support person to be able to differentiate between the two, too, as well. You know, whether you’re being a supportive spouse or being a supportive parent. When something happens in one of your kids’ lives, whether they’re falling off a bike or whether they’re fighting with a friend, you can run over there and pick them up right away and dust them off and say everything’s going to be fine. Or you can check on them and say, hey, well, you fell off your bike.
[00:40:25] Okay, well, you stand up? Alright, stand up and getting to do some things on their own. Dust yourself off. Are you injured? Do we need to take it to?
[00:40:33] No, we don’t. Okay, you think you’re gonna make it through this? Alright. Okay, carry on. Get on your bike and go again.
[00:40:39] And the same thing with, you know, with other things. But you do have to, you know, leg’s broken. It’s like, okay, time to step in.
[00:40:46] Bryana Russell: Exactly, exactly.
[00:40:48] Troy Van Vliet: We got to give that proper support. So it is a challenge on the outside to be able to see because quite often, you know, parent kid falls, run over, pick them up and everything’s gonna be okay and hugs and kisses and you know, which isn’t horrible. But there was also a teaching moment for resilience there as well. Yeah. That, okay, at some point, you got to be able to stand up on your own. Yeah. And because I’m not going to be there for everything.
[00:41:10] Bryana Russell: Yeah.
[00:41:12] Troy Van Vliet: Which is, you know, it’s one of the reasons why I’m an advocate for sports too. And in youth not to be well, I mean, you’re teaching things like competitiveness, but you’re also teaching resilience, you’re also teaching, you know what, unless I’m outside practicing in the rain and snow, and I’m cold, and I’m sore, I’m injured or whatever. Unless I’m doing that, I’m not going to be competitive down the road, and I’m not going to have the ability to win and receive all of those rewards that go along with winning. Those are also teaching moments that I think quite often it’s like, well, you know, it’s uncomfortable, so I don’t want to do it. It’s like, well, no, you also you have to get uncomfortable to get comfortable.
[00:41:55] There’s this balance that we’re fighting with all the time. Like, okay, what’s real? What isn’t real? And, you know, I’m being triggered versus this is just a tough moment. Suck it up, buttercup.
[00:42:08] Bryana Russell: I think that there’s also this piece of that resilience and that aptitude to use something as a teaching moment versus actually just be accompanied in that moment without that’s dependent on the person experiencing it too, right? Like we all have different levels of our needs being met and greater needs in different places. And the beauty of like, if we look at the Gospels here, I go back to the to the teachings of the church again. We see that Christ’s response was always first to restore a relationship and then to deal with physical healing. Right?
[00:42:44] So as we tend to our young people and as we accompany them, first is always relationship. Right? So if your child is crying on the floor and needs you and you’re just ignoring them because you think they’re gonna learn, what they’re gonna remember is not actually how they hurt their leg but how the attention wasn’t there, they weren’t, they didn’t have any presence. Absence of presence. So, the lesson isn’t always, you know, the healing of the physical or the tending to the physical, or in this case, to the it’s actually the restoration of relationship.
[00:43:15] And it comes back to what’s the key indicator for resilience? Connection.
[00:43:21] Troy Van Vliet: I’ll give you a great example of that. For my youngest daughter, injured herself in PE, dislocated her kneecap. It’s horrible. Yeah. Ouch.
[00:43:32] Biggest memory of that when it happened is her principal, Mitch Deslauriers, picking her up and taking her and carrying her to the car and how he you know, made sure she was going to be okay and everything you know, in the meantime, her kneecap popped back in while this is all happening. But her whole thing is the connection with her principal that somebody stopped and took care of her and she still talks about it to this day.
[00:44:00] Bryana Russell: It didn’t decrease her pain. No. Mean, maybe inadvertently solved the problem, but it wasn’t for care for the woundedness. It was the accompaniment.
[00:44:09] Troy Van Vliet: It’s all about that. Yeah. So, those connections and you think about effective sport analogies again, coaches that have good connections with their athletes are effective in essence. And you hear about athletes talking about their coaches from way back and oh, yeah, well, this one really taught me this, didn’t there was no teaching without the connection there and belief. And it’s like, I’ve got faith in my coach that they’re teaching me the right thing and guiding me, even though it’s hard sometimes.
[00:44:42] I don’t like to hear it. I don’t like being corrected all the time. But you know what, is a human connection. So, connection is huge.
[00:44:49] Bryana Russell: Yeah, and I think that that’s our real hope in the Sanctuary Youth series is that when I mentioned that young man who’d never talked about these things in church before, he didn’t have a point of connection to have this conversation. And so when we allow young people to come together, I’m going back to those three pillars, the psychology, theology, and lived experience, the You series is based on that as well. And one of the most profound parts of it from my perspective is, we have a young person tell their lived experience of mental, mental health challenges. So what that looked like for them. And then we gathered a panel of young people, four young people who had never met before.
[00:45:29] And we allowed them to respond to it like they watched the story and then they started talking about it. And it was phenomenal, Troy. You know what it’s like to get four teenagers to talk sometimes it feels like it’s pulling teeth and other times you’re like will you be quiet already? In this case these four kids who had never met before we wanted an hour worth of content from them. We filmed for two hours and then they had to be cut off.
[00:45:53] Troy Van Vliet: Wow.
[00:45:54] Bryana Russell: And they said the same thing It kept echoing like, I wish we had more chance to talk about this. Now they were doing it there with our incredible presenters who are featured in each of the sessions as well, Amy and Nathan, and with, some of our programs team who were helping that conversation, but they had connections point with connection points with adults in that conversation. Now you take that and you replicate it every place, every school that does the youth series. And you think, oh, look, there’s a new connection. There’s a new person who is not offering them answers, but is offering them presents.
[00:46:26] Who if they do have a wound Yes. A mental health wound Yeah. Just like your daughter’s kneecap Yeah. They’re not gonna remember that it was remedied in that moment. But they’re gonna recognize that somebody was there to be with them in it.
[00:46:38] Yeah. What an impact that will have in our young people’s lives.
[00:46:43] Troy Van Vliet: Wow.
[00:46:45] Bryana Russell: And then for Catholic education, it frees up so much too. Like it the energy that is spent worrying about that when they can, you know, have safe connections there to express these needs. They can reorientate themselves to that final exam or to that volleyball game. Right. You know, it’s really supportive supporting the whole person.
[00:47:06] Troy Van Vliet: Wow. How long is a typical module?
[00:47:12] Bryana Russell: So the session?
[00:47:13] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:47:13] Bryana Russell: Yeah. So the film is just under thirty minutes, typically. Actually, think it might be shorter. That’s the average adult course. The Upland I think is a bit shorter.
[00:47:23] Then there’s a facilitator’s guide. It can run for an hour to an hour and fifteen. It starts with an opening exercise like a fun youth group game that you can be done that’s provided for you. And then there’s the film which starts with some really great educational pieces by our dynamic presenters Amy and Nathan. And then it has lived experience story and it has the panel responding to it sort of modeling how to have conversations around this.
[00:47:48] Because that’s probably one of the most important ways that we can teach young people is by modeling them. Modeling this to them and then it has three discussion questions for the group to have together and then the session closes with an exercise. So, it’s a data based or evidence based exercise and spiritual practice that can be helpful. So it’s funny you mentioned so much about sports because there’s a lot of mental health practices that go into being an athlete, right? Like you, I imagine.
[00:48:20] Troy Van Vliet: 100%.
[00:48:21] Bryana Russell: Yeah. From your breathing to like your visioning and
[00:48:24] Troy Van Vliet: Everything, which is kind of like the informal way of kids getting help with mental health issues. It’s not a formal practice, but it just happens to be a byproduct of one of the things of playing sports.
[00:48:43] Bryana Russell: And
[00:48:44] Troy Van Vliet: it just comes naturally quite often, especially if you have a good coach and kids are happy playing the sport. And I reflect back on it because I played sports all through school through university as well. Quite often today, I’ll reflect back, that is a lesson I learned playing football that is a lesson I learned playing basketball.
[00:49:07] Bryana Russell: Interesting.
[00:49:08] Troy Van Vliet: Especially a lot of it coming to resilience, a lot of it coming to I don’t really feel like doing it. Well, it doesn’t matter. We’re in this generation of people that says, well, do whatever you feel all of the time. Wait a minute. No, the world doesn’t revolve.
[00:49:24] That doesn’t work that way.
[00:49:26] Bryana Russell: And the flip side of that is to ignore everything that you ever feel, which is also incredibly unhealthy. How do we sit with what we know to be true and we are experiencing and then move it in us. And it’s funny because one of the exercises that we talk about sometimes is breath exercises, which I imagine you would use in sports too, right? Like just even the way that you breathe affects your nervous system. But what if we united that to a spiritual practice?
[00:49:55] Like, what if it wasn’t just breathing in and breathing out, but it was, oh, inhaling God’s presence and exhaling our anxiety. Know, there, that’s a great evidence based practice and spiritual practice that these young people will encounter through the youth series.
[00:50:14] Troy Van Vliet: Here’s a question. So the facilitator, so there’s facilitators in the video?
[00:50:19] Bryana Russell: Yes, presenters.
[00:50:21] Troy Van Vliet: What are their names again?
[00:50:22] Bryana Russell: Amy and Nathan. Amy and Nathan. And they’re so great. Can I just give a short one for absolutely? Is a pastor here in Vancouver.
[00:50:30] And Amy is the one who was doing her Masters at Regent who wrote the whole course, who did all of it. She’s back in Australia now. So she has an incredible Aussie accent. So it makes it entertaining to watch and they have such great chemistry on screen too. It’s really good.
[00:50:43] Troy Van Vliet: That’s great. Okay, how important is the facilitator that’s actually putting the course on? How important is that position for a course like this? Like, is it somebody that needs to have done the course 18 times and taken another course outside? Or is it somebody that’s just whatever a good parent or a good teacher?
[00:51:05] Bryana Russell: Yes. Yes. To just being present, I think we really strive to make everything we do low barrier. So that means almost anybody can use it in any situation, right? That’s what our hope is.

[00:51:18] And so the facilitator guide gives you a robust understanding of what is a good way to facilitate, gives you some pointers and disclosure issues as well. So anybody can really facilitate it. A good parent, a good teacher. A youth group leader.
[00:51:34] Troy Van Vliet: And can they facilitate it without having seen the course? Can they be learning as they go?
[00:51:41] Bryana Russell: I mean, yes, but I would probably suggest that they do a preview. It wouldn’t take them like let me be clear on that. I don’t think they should have taken the course before. Right. But I would say they should watch the film before they show it to young people.
[00:51:54] Troy Van Vliet: Okay, like it could be even the day out type of just
[00:51:58] Bryana Russell: watch the film just so you know what’s coming. But maybe that’s just me. Mean, you prefer to just go on the fly, some people might prefer that to watch it with the young people for the first time. I don’t want to be prescriptive.
[00:52:10] Troy Van Vliet: Okay. I’m just curious to see what because I know that that can be a barrier for some, you know, schools are busy. There’s so many programs. There’s so many things going on. We don’t want to be able to offer the best for our kids all the time.[
00:52:24] But it’s just like, oh, when you’re going and asking the teacher to do yet another thing, know, they’re like, really? How are we going to fit this into what we’re doing? So the easier it is to fit in. You say, you know what, look, just go, just do it and roll through it. And then if you’re going to do it again, next time you’re that much more polished and you may have more input.
[00:52:43] Bryana Russell: Exactly. And the way
[00:52:44] Troy Van Vliet: it goes. So, if there’s less barriers, the better. Exactly.
[00:52:50] Bryana Russell: And we do have So we did do a pilot in a Catholic school in Texas with the first session and to rave reviews. They wanted the whole school to roll it out. They thought that all, I think it was grade eight should be doing this across the board because it was so fruitful in the conversations. And it’s probably helpful to mention too that, like our program team is just so smart. Again, I’m tooting their horn because I didn’t have anything to do with it.
[00:53:15] They have geared this for 11 to 15 year olds and that’s strategic because the World Health Organization suggests that the average age of onset for mental illness is now 15. So before you get to that stage, what do you want to do? Well, you want to ensure that you’ve increased help seeking behaviors so that they can ask for help, that they’ve practiced that, that they it’s they know it’s a conversation that they can have with the trusted adults around them. You also want them to know deep down inside them that if they’re experiencing a mental health challenge, that it is not indicative of God’s presence in their lives. That it is not a lack of faith.
[00:53:52] It is not because they haven’t been praying enough or that they need a more robust confession. I mean, all those things play into the whole person, but they are not directly tied always to mental health challenges. So we need them to understand and decrease that self stigma and ensure that when they do encounter these challenges, they don’t see that the church has nothing but condemnation to offer them. But instead the church will accompany them. So that’s why it’s key that it happens between that age of 11 and 15.
[00:54:25] Troy Van Vliet: Okay, got it. Here’s a different question. Do kids benefit from doing the program a second time, let’s say the following year or later in the year? Yeah. That’s a good question.
[00:54:41] I know.
[00:54:46] Bryana Russell: We just rolled out in January. So we haven’t had an occasion to have kids do it more than once. I mean, we’re still having kids do it for the first time. I can’t see why not. I know churches have run the sanctuary courts again and again and again.
[00:54:59] Troy Van Vliet: Yes.
[00:55:00] Bryana Russell: I can see it being really helpful in a different perspective, a different season of life.
[00:55:05] Troy Van Vliet: Like, I
[00:55:06] Bryana Russell: know every time I look at our content, I glean something new. And that might be because I’m really curious about how all this works out and applying it in different ways. But I think that it could bear fruit.
[00:55:19] Troy Van Vliet: Like I’m thinking, okay, especially let’s say in elementary school, if he’s 11, what are you in grade six or something or grade five?
[00:55:26] Bryana Russell: Do you know what? Shout out to my son who turns 11 on Friday. He’s in grade five.
[00:55:31] Troy Van Vliet: He’s in grade five. Okay, there you go. I wasn’t far off.
[00:55:34] Bryana Russell: So you’re
[00:55:35] Troy Van Vliet: in grade five and you take this course. And then you don’t take it again? I would think.
[00:55:40] Bryana Russell: No, you’re right. You’d be a totally different kid in grade
[00:55:42] Troy Van Vliet: eight. In grade eight, you’re a different kid. In grade 10, you’re a different kid. And then taking the course with a different group, with a different pile of kids is also going to be different. You’re going to get different because you’re working with after you watch the course.
[00:56:03] Bryana Russell: You’re in conversation.
[00:56:03] Troy Van Vliet: And different kids are experiencing different things at different times.
[00:56:09] Bryana Russell: I mean, if I lay all my cards on the table, I’d love to see schools use this as a curriculum going forward where they use it, like in certain grades at touch points. Think, know, harkening back to that Catholic education and what’s different about it. That whole person thing is so Massive. It’s massive, right? Like we don’t just want intellectuals in the world.
[00:56:35] We want people who have a heart and a love for Jesus, who are desiring to be saints and who integrate, the wholeness of their human experience into their faith. And so, I’d love to see schools run it in grade six, maybe grade eight, maybe grade 10, as part of their, curriculum. It would be brilliant. We, I had the joy of going here in Vancouver to Little Flower Academy’s opening mass Yeah. For the youth series.
[00:57:10] And it was celebrated by father Bryan Duggan. And I just shout out to father Brian who is such a gift to this diocese. So if you don’t know him, he is a trained psychologist, and a priest, and he is brilliant. There’s no other words to describe his ability to bring such, a robust view of the human person incorporating mental health, but then such a pastoral heart for caring for individuals. It’s it’s I mean, it’s like nothing I’ve seen in a long time in this work.
[00:57:47] And here he is in our diocese. And so he came and celebrated mass at Little Flower Academy and gave the most beautiful homily. And all of the girls there singing songs that related to God meeting them where they’re at. And they have an incredible program where they do have a counselor who is a mental health counselor, not an academic counselor, you know, not a I don’t know what other kind of counselors there are, but she is dedicated to being a mental health counselor. And they have 20 grade eleven and twelve students who’ve done mental health first aid.
[00:58:21] So that’s, like a first aid course.
[00:58:24] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Didn’t even know that existed.
[00:58:25] Bryana Russell: Yeah. So they’ve done that and they are equipped to serve their community, their school with that skill set. And then they have a space upstairs where, it’s kind of like a I wouldn’t call it a timeout room. I’m probably they’re gonna be like, Bryana, don’t call it that. But a space where people who are having any sort of difficulty or you just want to go and sit and be quiet, they have a room there.
[00:58:47] Troy Van Vliet: The sanctuary
[00:58:47] Bryana Russell: A sanctuary. Well done, Troy. Yeah. And, it’s incredible. And when I asked the counselor, I was like, so how are you like, what’s the demand like?
[00:58:57] What are you experiencing? And it’s fascinating because she said post COVID, she was busy. She didn’t have time to see everybody, who wanted to see her and the room was always full. And there was a lot of mental health crisis. And it has since dissipated.
[00:59:14] And I was curious because they’ve put in place all of these beautiful ways of attending to their school’s mental health and well-being that now there’s not as much need anymore. So when you go back, when you were asking before, we going to create contagion effect in some ways? They would be a pretty good example that it actually doesn’t.
[00:59:35] Troy Van Vliet: It’s doing the opposite.
[00:59:36] Bryana Russell: It’s doing the opposite.
[00:59:37] Troy Van Vliet: Which is
[00:59:38] Bryana Russell: is what it’s supposed to do. So they did the opening mass and they have started the Sanctuary Youth series, which I’m really excited about. And I can’t wait to go back and hear how it’s going.
[00:59:47] Troy Van Vliet: Wow. So great segue. Yeah. LFA, Little Flower Academy.
[00:59:52] Bryana Russell: Yeah, Little Flower So we are the
[00:59:53] Troy Van Vliet: first in the Vancouver Archdiocese.
[00:59:56] Bryana Russell: This first school that Yeah.
[00:59:59] Troy Van Vliet: That have implemented, but you haven’t got the feedback yet.
[01:00:02] Bryana Russell: I haven’t got the feedback yet.
[01:00:03] Troy Van Vliet: No. Okay. Well, I’m looking forward to hearing that feedback.
[01:00:07] Bryana Russell: And we’ve also started a study, an international study in The US and Canada, an impact study based on the youth series. So it’s done by an organization, a research firm called Excellence in Giving, and they have created survey and all the study components. So it’s went through an ethics committee, like it’s done all of the rigorous work to be a certified study in the impact of the youth series. And those results will have probably in May, June. So, we’re really looking forward to that as well.
[01:00:37] Troy Van Vliet: So, you had obviously preliminary stuff from the school in Texas that you did? Do you know how many times they ran the Just once. Okay. And do you know how many students they would have
[01:00:47] Bryana Russell: I don’t know. No. Sorry.
[01:00:50] Troy Van Vliet: You talked about it briefly, but is there a recommended number? Like you don’t want 50 in a class?
[01:00:55] Bryana Russell: Yeah. Do want
[01:00:56] Troy Van Vliet: four or do you
[01:00:57] Bryana Russell: want 30 in your average I don’t know what class sizes you guys have.
[01:01:02] Troy Van Vliet: Well, now they’re small.
[01:01:03] Bryana Russell: Yeah, it’s small. I think in my son’s grade 11 class and he has 20 kids in it. I think you could do it in that, but then you would just break off into smaller groups to have conversations.
[01:01:13] Troy Van Vliet: Okay. And then in the groups?
[01:01:17] Bryana Russell: Five to seven seems like a good five to seven, six would be somewhere between five and seven. Six it
[01:01:23] Troy Van Vliet: is. Six it is. There’s your number. Okay. Good to know.
[01:01:28] Well, I’m very excited to hear about the progress, but also the results. Yeah, me too. That’s going to be awesome. So that feedback, I’m sure, is just going to go viral Now, and it’s faith based. And it’s been approved by our Catholic faith locally?
[01:01:52.] Bryana Russell: That’s a great question. Approved as in rubber stamped? No. So we don’t have any sort of seals on our work. The Sanctuary Courts for Catholic was promoted by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops as part of their Novena on Mental Health.
[01:02:06] So we have a lot of big fans in The US. Here’s our our catch for Canada. We’re not in French, so we are not a bilingual resource. So the Canadian Council of Bishops can’t do anything with it until we have a French translation.
[01:02:24] Troy Van Vliet: Okay, so right now you say because there’s five different languages?
[01:02:27] Bryana Russell: Yeah. So we are
[01:02:28] Troy Van Vliet: in French is one them.
[01:02:29] Bryana Russell: French is in one of them. Know. Know. Know. Know.
[01:02:32] Canadian group. It’s gotta
[01:02:33] Troy Van Vliet: get on it.
[01:02:34] Bryana Russell: I know. That’s why I was joking about my Canadian tuxedo. Not really Canadian because we don’t even have French translation. We’re in, and this is interesting, Spanish was our first translation. Russian Romanian.
[01:02:48] Troy Van Vliet: German.
[01:02:52] Bryana Russell: And then English. So maybe yeah. Maybe English is not a translate five languages. We’re not in five translations. I should rephrase the way I said that.
[01:02:58] Five languages. Five languages. And Russian and Romanian was quite interesting because Caritas in Europe reached out and said that they wanted a resource for the state to push out from Moldova, in the country of Moldova. So they pushed out the sanctuary course in all Catholic parishes, and they needed it in Russian and Romanian to do so. So That is amazing.
[01:03:22] Yeah.
[01:03:26] Troy Van Vliet: Is there in the translation, is it a completely different video or is it just a voice over thing?
[01:03:33] Bryana Russell: Yeah, right now it’s just dubbed. One of the things that we’re really committed to so is excellence in our work as well. So everything we do has a rigorous review process. So it’s reviewed culturally. So if it’s a person, from a different background than our team, then we will have a cultural review of it.
[01:03:52] Everything is reviewed by psychologists, psychiatrists, and theologians. So we we really wanna ensure that, it’s well done. And so with our translations, people are like, oh, it’ll be so easy to do a French translation. But it’s actually a lot of work because finding the right words for different words that we use is imperative. And then the review.
[01:04:14] And sometimes the conversation around one word can take a lot of time and a lot of effort just to ensure that we’re using the right word and language in their context. For us, language makes a big difference. So, as I mentioned earlier, allowing young people to know that they are a beloved child of God outside of any sort of experience mental health languishing that they’re having is really imperative. So how does that shape our language? Well, we don’t say things like, Joe is depressed.
[01:04:46] Joe is not depressed. Joe is a person who’s experiencing a season of depression. Or Mike is a schizophrenic. Or Mike has, you know, like the way we speak about this matters. And especially around suicide loss too, when we say a person committed suicide, it’s based on an antiquated understanding of church teaching, which is not the church’s stance and church’s teaching to this day.
[01:05:12] It was based on committing a sin. So we try really hard to shift our language that a person dies by suicide. And then what’s important is not how they died, but how they lived. And that’s how we try and remember them. So all of the ways that we shift our language.
[01:05:29] So when we are translating into other languages, the language and the wording and the phrasing is imperative for us to get right. So, it takes a lot of effort.
[01:05:39] Troy Van Vliet: Language even around Down syndrome, my youngest has Down And, know, when she’s always a Downs kid, it’s like, no, no, she’s a kid that has Down syndrome. I
[01:05:51] Bryana Russell: That must be so frustrating.
[01:05:52] Troy Van Vliet: You know, it doesn’t bother me. There’s a lot of words around it. You know, if I feel up to it, I’ll correct people on it. But I don’t get offended. Until you’re in it, you don’t even realize that it does bother people.
[01:06:08] And that could be said for so many different things. It’s like a child with autism or he’s autistic. Well, no, he’s a child with autism.
[01:06:18] Bryana Russell: Yeah. But imagine if we could shift our language. Like imagine if we all made an effort to be like, the first thing out of my mouth is, Oh, he is a beloved child of God. And then everything else that we know about that person follows from there.
[01:06:32] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, isn’t that something? Definitely those are words to aspire to.
[01:06:37] Bryana Russell: It would be nice if my internal dialogue was that all the time. But I mean, I think that’s what we want to do for mental health too is when I talked about the continuum, knowing that we’re all on there somewhere, also dissipates the time, all the time. Also dissipates our ability to other people. So like, oh, you need mental health help because of this, this, and this. Well, no, we all have mental health.
[01:07:08] And so this divide, I heard somebody recently as we were doing a retreat say, sameness is not the same as oneness. And I was so drawn to that because as we understand the body of Christ, we’re not all called to be the pinky finger. Some of us have to be, you know, the foot or the hands or the ears or the mind. But the pinky finger is just as important. Yeah.
[01:07:32] Right? There’s this this idea that we have this oneness. And if we can shift our language and shift our understanding of mental health, we can participate in that more fully understanding that we all have an important part to play in the body of Christ, regardless of our mental health challenges.
[01:07:48] Troy Van Vliet: Right. And speaking of language, love the word you use season. We’re in this season right now. Yeah. The season will end.
[01:07:56] Yeah. And there’ll be another one that comes after it. Yeah. And a good friend of mine always says, yeah, we’ll keep your eyes on the horizon too. I love that.
[01:08:05] So true. Like, yeah, now we’re going through this garbage right now. But yeah, look out there. When you’re at sea and rough seas, the best thing to do is you got to look on the horizon. You have to keep your eyes on the horizon.
[01:08:16] Bryana Russell: And sometimes it’s even harder because it’s a season of darkness, right? Like in the dead of night, how do you look at the horizon?
[01:08:22] Troy Van Vliet: If a parish brings this in, and let’s say that’s all they do for mental health, Is it still a leap forward? Is it a big step forward?
[01:08:33] Bryana Russell: Yeah, so 92% of churches that have done it that have filled out our survey suggests that it’s made an impact in the way that they understand alongside somebody who’s experiencing mental health challenges. So, that’s pretty important. And again, it’s a small
[01:08:49] Troy Van Vliet: Especially going from zero, having nothing like no formal approach to mental health at all within the parishes.
[01:08:58] Bryana Russell: And I think at the beginning, you sort of alluded to the fact that if the church sees mental health as a problem to be solved, we export it, right? Like we invest in more Catholic therapists, and we suggest that there’s more learning to be done out there, which is all good. Yeah. Yeah. But there is a specific role for the church in this.
[01:09:16] And that’s outside of those relationships, which are always, in a sense, have a power dynamic, right? So if you’re the physician and I’m the patient, there’s a power dynamic there. And so that lost art of friendship that we talked about can’t exist truly. Therapist and client that can exist, right? So the church has this beautiful, beautiful role of saying with or without mental illness, you are a part of this body.
[01:09:45] You belong here. Yep. And we can offer friendship and it’s not one-sided friendship. It’s reciprocal friendship. And that creates resilience.
[01:09:54] Part of the solution. So, yeah, I don’t think it’s the only thing that can be done in a parish. Right? Running the course isn’t magic fix. But what it does is it reminds the parish of the role that they have in this epidemic of mental health challenges and crisis, right?
[01:10:14] Troy Van Vliet: So, and it’s been in parishes longer, of course, the And our parishes running it consecutively continuing so because if it’s only whatever six or eight people in a course at a time, so would they finish it? Well, I guess it doesn’t have to be done. You could be doing session one eight days in a row for eight different groups
[01:10:36] Bryana Russell: you want to do
[01:10:37] Troy Van Vliet: it depending on the demand.
[01:10:39] Bryana Russell: There are parishes, I’m thinking of two in California, who it’s part of their yearly plan. So they run it every year. Again, it’s pre evangelization, so they get new people into the parish who want to have these conversations. It’s a great way of introducing God’s presence to them. And then, you know, the catechesis and all that follows.
[01:10:58] Here in Vancouver, I can’t think of a parish that Oh, no, I do know of a parish that’s run it twice. And they’ve really enjoyed it. There’s a parish that’s run it once. Another parish in Langley right now is doing our resource When a Loved One Dies by Suicide, which is another resource we did about the church’s teaching around suicide loss. And so they’re using that one.
[01:11:20] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, that’s fantastic. I truly hope it gets embraced more in it because I’d love to hear the feedback from it. And on an ongoing basis, I’d love to see it in St. John Paul II Academy.
[01:11:33] Bryana Russell: We would love that.

[01:11:34] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, like, and there is so much going on. We were just trying to get construction finished, trying to get teachers hired right now. There’s so much going on. So, I’m not sure exactly when we’ll fit it in. But the sooner, the better.
[01:11:46] Bryana Russell: Well, we’ll be here when you’re ready.
[01:11:48] Troy Van Vliet: Yes. Well, hopefully. And once again, it’s online. So it’s and you’re saying it’s free. It’s free.
[01:11:55] So anybody that knows about it, any school that knows about it
[01:11:59] Bryana Russell: can access it
[01:12:00] Troy Van Vliet: and just say, Okay, let’s let’s give it a go.
[01:12:04] Bryana Russell: We don’t even have any reporting. Like you you just take it and go.
[01:12:08] Troy Van Vliet: Just go
[01:12:08] Bryana Russell: and do it. Yeah, I don’t know if it’s the best business model. Yeah, really. Which is probably why we can’t keep up with demand. But it is it is truly because of our heart for it, right?
[01:12:18] Yeah. In the church. This will change. It’ll shift things.
[01:12:22] Troy Van Vliet: So and of course, it’s all been built with donor money.
[01:12:25] Bryana Russell: It has. Yeah. Yeah. So And the help of Project Advance here in the Yeah. Which we’re really, really grateful for.
[01:12:34] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Know that I’m sure. But I’m sure Dan has been wonderful. Dan White. So your CEO?
[01:12:41] Yeah. Great guy.
[01:12:44] Bryana Russell: We like him.
[01:12:45] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. I had the privilege of meeting him and spoke with him several times actually after the retreat as well. So, he’s super. All of you. All of you, everybody that I’ve come in contact with the sanctuary, you’re all just beautiful people.
[01:12:58] Bryana Russell: Oh, Troy. It’s such a gift to be invited here to share this with you. No, thank you. For you to see so clearly how it integrates into Catholic education, the heart of Catholic education. And yeah.
[01:13:10] Troy Van Vliet: This is a matter within Catholic education. I’m hoping that this is just going to be one of the great things that Catholic education offers is this faith based support for mental illness challenges, you know, that are out there, which there’s many.
[01:13:35] Bryana Russell: There are.
[01:13:35] Troy Van Vliet: So and we want to be able to support our community
[01:13:37] Bryana Russell: and ourselves. Ourselves. In those periods when we’re having when we’re languishing.
[01:13:43] Troy Van Vliet: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Well, I’m looking forward to taking the course. I don’t think the youth series would be the one I
[01:13:50] Bryana Russell: think you might enjoy it.
[01:13:51] Troy Van Vliet: I probably would.
[01:13:52] Bryana Russell: Are you a rap fan? Because we have a great piece in there by a British rapper, Governor B, who does the spoken word piece. So I don’t know if that’s your Well,
[01:14:00] Troy Van Vliet: it actually would probably be fun to run the course. Maybe I could be a
[01:14:03] Bryana Russell: physique singer
[01:14:04] Troy Van Vliet: or something.
[01:14:04] Bryana Russell: Think it’d be great. And I also just want to thank you for your hard questions because I think when people accept things without asking questions where there’s a little bit of stickiness, it’s a disservice to everybody involved and I’m really They’re
[01:14:17] Troy Van Vliet: all very real ones for me. I mean, I’m thinking it and it just came out. And
[01:14:22] Bryana Russell: I’m so glad it Because
[01:14:24] Troy Van Vliet: in today’s day, we’re all experiencing it in different ways and we’re trying to figure it out. Nobody knows what the hell we’re doing. Everybody was just like, how does this all piece together? And, you know, you look back in history and it’s like, this wasn’t a problem or didn’t seem be a problem then. And now it’s a problem now.
[01:14:41] Why is it a problem? What are we doing wrong? What’s changed? What’s falling apart? So and we all want what’s best for everybody.
[01:14:50] We all want what’s best for our kids and for our community. And this is it’s nice. It’s a well structured way, a well structured approach with all of the people way smarter than me that have put the program together.
[01:15:09] Bryana Russell: And me too.
[01:15:12] Troy Van Vliet: It’s quasi rubber stamped in one form or another, and it’s getting great results. So kudos to you and to everybody at Sanctuary.
[01:15:22] Bryana Russell: Yeah, it’s such a joy to be able to talk about it with you and just have a good conversation.
[01:15:26] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. And well, and what would be great is to get the course implemented and then to have you back.
01:15:30] Bryana Russell: I would love that. I’d love to come back and tell you what we’ve learned in May, because I think it’ll be really staggering if we have the outcomes that we anticipate.
[01:15:39] Troy Van Vliet: Yes. All right. Well, I’m it will. Like with the success that you’ve had with the parishes and the global, you know, it being absorbed globally is such great news. So, kudos to you and everybody there.
[01:15:51] Bryana Russell: Thank you.
[01:15:51] Troy Van Vliet: I want to say thank you for coming today and giving us your time. And I hope when this comes out, share it amongst your
[01:16:03] Bryana Russell: I would love to. I’ll have to make sure I didn’t say anything too silly first.
[01:16:06] Troy Van Vliet: No, no, no. I think we’re good. We’re good. So, and like I said, I’m really looking forward to having you back.
[01:16:13] Bryana Russell: Thank
[01:16:13] Troy Van Vliet: you, Troy. All right.
[01:16:14] Bryana Russell: Thank you.
[01:16:15] All right. And thanks everybody for joining us here today and be sure to tune in for the next segment as well. We’ve got lots of great visitors joining us. So thanks, everyone.
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