Re­spond­ing to needs for ad­dress­ing is­sues of fam­ily, drug abuse and men­tal health is­sues among the grow­ing Sikh com­mu­nity in Canada, WSO launches the much-needed Sikh Fam­ily Helpline.

Bramp­ton, Canada – Re­spond­ing to the grow­ing needs of psy­cho­log­i­cal, psy­chi­atric and fam­ily coun­selling amongst the Sikh pop­u­la­tion in Canada, the World Sikh Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Canada has ex­panded its sphere of ac­tiv­i­ties by launch­ing the Sikh Fam­ily Helpline across Canada on the oc­ca­sion of World Men­tal Health Day on 10 Oc­to­ber, 2017.

As stated in the press state­ment of WSO, the Sikh Fam­ily Helpline, avail­able at www.sikhfam­i­ly­helpline.com is a peer-to-peer non-emer­gency helpline ser­vic­ing the Sikh com­mu­nity in Canada in Pun­jabi and Eng­lish. The Sikh Fam­ily Helpline’s mis­sion is to pro­mote health and well­ness for in­di­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies in the Sikh com­mu­nity by clos­ing cur­rent gaps in ac­cess to re­sources and in­creas­ing com­mu­nity aware­ness and ac­tivism, says the re­lease. 

The helpline num­ber is Call 1-800-551-9128 and is sup­ported by com­mu­nity part­ners such as Pun­jabi Com­mu­nity Health Ser­vices (PCHS) and Catholic Fam­ily Ser­vices of Peel-Duf­ferin. 

The Sikh Fam­ily Helpline is ex­pected to work with vol­un­teers, in­sti­tu­tions, and part­ners within and out­side the Sikh com­mu­nity to fa­cil­i­tate com­mu­nity build­ing and to pro­vide cru­cial so­cial ser­vices, with spe­cial at­ten­tion to cul­tural tra­di­tion, im­mi­gra­tion ex­pe­ri­ence, and lan­guage ac­cess.

As spelt out by WSO, in­di­vid­u­als call­ing the Sikh Fam­ily Helpline will be prompted to leave a voice­mail with their name and safe num­ber or email to con­tact them, and the is­sue they are fac­ing. Calls will be re­turned within 24 hours from a blocked and pri­vate num­ber. All calls and con­ver­sa­tions will be kept strictly con­fi­den­tial, ex­cept in sit­u­a­tions deemed an emer­gency or where chil­dren are at risk.

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WSO Pres­i­dent Mukhbir Singh said to­day, “we are proud to be launch­ing the Sikh Fam­ily Helpline.  We heard from the com­mu­nity that hav­ing cul­tur­ally sen­si­tive re­sources and ac­cess to coun­sel­lors who un­der­stand the cul­tural nu­ances of the Sikh com­mu­nity is es­sen­tial and we be­lieve this ini­tia­tive will help con­nect mem­bers of the com­mu­nity in need with those ex­ist­ing re­sources.”