By Matthew Daldalian
Retired social worker and consultant Filomena Corrado at the support group space, where she leads the new weekly support group (Matthew Daldalian, The Laval News)
When a small group gathered last week at the local wellness club in Chomedy, they were doing something quietly new for the city’s English-speaking residents: taking part in a support group designed for people helping loved ones through mental troubles.
The group, led by Filomena Corrado, a retired social worker and clinical consultant, offers a free, confidential space for those supporting family members with mental illness. This ranges from adolescents facing anxiety to adults living with depression or schizophrenia.
“It really addresses the isolation aspect,” Corrado said. “The fact of not feeling alone with what you’re going through.”
The weekly Wednesday-morning sessions are part of a partnership between AGAPE, Alpabem, Cafgraf, and the Comité de développement local de Chomedey (CDLC), with the goal of creating a regular English-language access point for mental-health support. Corrado said the idea grew from her work at the aforementioned Alpabem, a long-running community organization that provides counseling, group therapy, and family support for people affected by mental illness.
“Sometimes [informal caregivers] feel that it’s their fault, that it’s their responsibility that the person has gotten sick and it’s not the case,” Corrado said. “Many factors contribute and they have to also learn how to deal with this situation, take care of themselves while they’re taking care of somebody else.”
For Corrado, who spent more than 35 years in Laval’s health and social services system, the benefits of simply talking with others in similar situations can be transformative. “It helps them go through the days and helps them go through what they’re going through,” she added.
She said the group’s creation stemmed from a shared recognition that Anglophones in Laval often travel to Montreal to access help in their own language. “There seemed to be a reaction, which was great,” Corrado said. “Like any support group that starts, it’s got to start somewhere.”
At AGAPE, assistant director Ian Williams, a trained social worker, said the project was years in the making.
“Some 15 years ago when I started working here, I worked on a smaller-scale project trying to make [people] understand why mental health services weren’t so accessible in English,” Williams said.
Williams said that effective mental-health care depends heavily on language, noting that clinicians need to communicate with clients in the language they’re most comfortable with to ensure the best possible treatment outcome.
AGAPE assistant director Ian Williams at his office in Chomedey (Matthew Daldalian, The Laval News)
He added that the initiative was initially funded through a joint program between the city of Laval and the Centre Intégré de Santé et de Services Sociaux de Laval (CISSS), before AGAPE and its partners stepped in to sustain it.
Williams explained that Agape joined forces with Alpabem director Patrice Machabée and other community partners to find new ways to keep the program funded. Together with the CDLC de Laval and Cafgraf, the organizations pooled their resources to cover rent and staff hours so the support group could continue operating.
Although participation was still low, Williams said the long-term goal was to demonstrate demand and attract more stable funding. “Our hope is to get enough interest in the group,” he said. “Generate enough evidence to show to potential new funders because we could only sustain this partnership for so long.”
Corrado said the support group offers a starting point, one built on empathy and connection rather than formality. “No matter what difficulty you go through, when you feel that there’s other people that you can speak to, that you can feel understood, that you don’t feel alone, it helps you go through the days,” she said.
For now, the doors remain open every Wednesday morning, a modest but vital space for English-speaking caregivers in Laval to share, listen and heal together.
