At VHA, our focus is to helping individuals living with hoarding tendencies placing their safety and housing at risk. We provide a combination of in-home sorting, decluttering and organizing sessions to help reduce the amount of items in the home using a harm reduction approach. We work along side with our clients to achieve their own goals and incorporate their personal motivations for success.

How We Help:

• Supportive, hands-on decluttering sessions
• Teaching different techniques to ‘letting go’ in a compassionate manner
• Mentoring clients to think about their belongings differently
• Increasing home safety and housing stability
• Linking clients to other appropriate community referrals

Learn more about Clutter and Hoarding Support at VHA

Extreme Cleaning provides a team of extreme cleaners that are trained and experienced to work with individuals and families at risk of eviction due to the conditions of their home using a compassionate care approach. We engage with clients throughout the process to help bring the home to a healthy and safe environment with the goal of housing stabilization.

How We Help:

• Clean out, de-clutter and discard items
• Thoroughly clean all living spaces in unit including walls, floors and cupboards, appliances and laundry
• Prepare home for pest control (bedbug, roach) treatment if required
• Help with weekly follow-up home supports when appropriate
• Linking clients to other long-term appropriate community referrals

Learn more about Extreme Cleaning at VHA

The program is for helping those with hoarding disorder dig their way out of the clutter and obstacles of their homes through a wrap around approach: support group, hoarding sessions and counselling. It defines a program of skill-building, learning to think about possessions in a different way, and gradual challenges to help people manage their clutter and their lives. It also provides useful information for family and friends of people who hoard, as they struggle to understand and help.

How We Help:

• Offer a 16-week peer support group using the Buried in Treasures model by David F. Tolin et al.
• Providing in-home weekly clutter coaching sessions
• Providing individual counselling support
• Providing peer mentor training to co-facilitate groups

This program offers short-term in-home support for parents at risk of or are experiencing post-partum depression, mental health issues and/or isolation. This program assists parents in need of temporary relief from the demands of childcare for kids who are 0-4 years old and are at home full-time.

How We Help:

• Providing guidance and emotional support for high risk and/or first-time parent(s)
• Teaching and mentoring parenting skills
• Provide in-home parent relief allowing parents to attend to their own mental health well-being
• Linkages made to support groups and counselling in local communities

Learn more about Community Support Programs at VHA

This program provides short-term in-home childcare support for families with children (who are 0-4 years old and are at home full-time) who need hands-on care while parents are recovering following a hospital discharge, medical emergency or crisis situation.

How We Help:

• Parents have the ability to recover from a physical illness
• Parents have the ability to recover from a mental health or situational crisis
• Providing homemaking as light housekeeping, laundry, meal preparation as needed.
• Providing home supports while parents recover to ensure a clean, safe, and healthy environment
• Linkages to community resources for ongoing support

Learn more about Community Support Programs at VHA

Active Body Active Mind provides caregivers a much-needed break from the demands of caring for a family member with dementia. It is meant to be a short-term respite for those not receiving any other in-home respite support service. Trained PSWs provide person and emotion-centered care according to principles of the Butterfly™ Model.

How We Help:

• Implementing the client’s care and activity plans
• Introducing new activities for mental and physical wellness
• Ability for caregiver to focus on their physical and mental well-being
• Ability for caregivers to reconnect and recharge with their own support systems