The Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation’s Journey for Life
Includes Critical Long Term Support for the Crisis Centre’s Youth Programs
Ginny and Kerry Dennehy, Kelty’s parents, are devoted to sharing their experience of losing their beloved son Kelty in 2001 to help educate others in order to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of depression related suicide. Through their support they hope to reduce the tragedy of teenage suicide. Their full story can be viewed on The Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation website.
The Dennehy family’s long journey with the Crisis Centre began in 2003 with discussions around a new 1-800-SUICIDE number for British Columbia. In 2004, Kerry met with Steve Cowan (then Crisis Centre Board Chair) and the HYDRECS Board and presented such a compelling story of his son Kelty, that the HYDRECS Board immediately approved $125,000 toward the new provincial line. Directly related to receiving this funding from HYDRECS, the Crisis Line Association of BC won the BC Broadcasters Award in 2005, providing much needed start up public advertising for the new 1-800 SUICIDE service in BC. In 2006, The Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation provided $10,000 toward the creation of Choices 2: Reaching Out, a new video focusing on a comprehensive approach to Youth Suicide Prevention in schools across North America.
Over the past nine years, The Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation has become the Centre’s principal youth funder providing over $250,000 toward Crisis Centre Youth programs, including initial funding in 2007 for YouthInBC.com, a new ‘online chat service for youth’ across British Columbia (becoming mobile compliant in 2014). On the educational front, The Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation has provided generous support for the Crisis Centre’s secondary school education workshops which promote resiliency, suicide awareness and mindfulness to more than 8,000 youth annually each year. Beyond Crisis Centre funding, The Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation has raised millions of dollars to support innovative services and relevant resources that can be found at Kelty Mental Health Resource Centres at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver and the Kelty Dennehy Mental Health Resource Centre in the new HOpe building for mental health at Lions Gate Hospital on the North Shore. For more details about these Centres, visit www.KeltyMentalHealth.ca
At the heart of the Kelty Foundation is Kerry and Ginny’s incredible drive to find solutions to systems that operate with many gaps along the continuum of care in Canada, too often resulting in preventable deaths. The “Enough is Enough” journey in 2014, where Ginny and Kerry, with the support of their two nephews (Quinn & Keenan) biked for over 8,000 km from Whistler to Newfoundland, to engage with Canadians and to raise money to help close the gaps in our fragmented system of care for depressed and/or suicidal individuals across Canada. The Dennehy’s search for solutions was taken to a new level, challenging Canadians from coast to coast to reduce stigma, build resiliency and save preventable suicide deaths by donating money to enable people suffering from depression to have a place to stay in the hospital until they are stabilized and the supports are in place for them out in the community.
A new and exciting project currently under development, thanks to funding from the Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation, involves an innovative initiative the ‘Kelty Online Therapy Service’. Once operational in 2016, individuals will have access to treatment options outside of regular business hours and from their own homes – working toward ‘completing the circle of care’. Once again, the Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation is working on solutions to our most difficult problems. As Kerry says “first there is the education then there is the solution”. By working with visionaries like Kerry and Ginny, suicide prevention, intervention and postvention services will be created and finally form a continuum of support without gaps.
The Crisis Centre is truly appreciative of our continued partnership with the Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation and is very thankful for their contributions to suicide prevention in BC and beyond.
Ginny Dennehy, President, Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation presents Ian Ross, Executive Director, Crisis Centre with a cheque for $40,000 towards the Centre’s Youth Suicide Prevention Program on December 1, 2015.