In a world suffering from disconnection and insecurity, Roots to Thrive is a living curriculum that is designed to re-connect us to our true nature, to each other, and to all that is. From this secure and embodied place, we remember who we are, the abundance of resources around us, and our innate capacity for healing.
Remembering who we are. Remembering our Wholeness.
We as humans are facing an international mental health crises with nearly half of us having a mental health diagnosis by the age of 40. Emotional exhaustion, burnout, depression, and PTSD are now commonplace within our families, communities, and places of work.
Root to Thrive History. Founded in 2019, Roots to Thrive is Canada’s first and only multidisciplinary, non-profit healthcare practice to legally offer evidence-informed, multi-week, group therapy programs that use a community of practice model, uniquely designed to address trauma and to promote resilience, and to also include the option of psilocybin-assisted and ketamine-assisted individual and group therapy.
While the Roots to Thrive program was originally designed to address caregiver burnout, the program has now adapted to serve all humans. A multi-disciplinary group of caregivers, curriculum, indigenous elders, organizational, and administrative experts identified a need among caregivers amid the rising tide of professional burnout and moral injury in healthcare. Motivated to address this need, this collaborative of knowledge keepers applied for and won a number of grants to continue evolving the curriculum to apply to all humans.
The Roots to Thrive program added the option of adding Ketamine-assisted therapy to the community of practice program in 2020, and the additional option of Psilocybin-assisted therapy was added in 2021.
Roots to Thrive recently achieved two historic firsts in Canada: it offered the first whole-mushroom psilocybin group therapy program for patients facing life-threatening illness; and received the first- ever Health Canada Special Access Program request approvals for ANY psychedelic therapy, in any form, for the psilocybin group therapy program.
Working with stakeholders in Vancouver Island Health and Health Canada, Roots to Thrive provides multi-week, virtual mental healthcare programs (which include in-person psilocybin-assisted and ketamine-assisted therapy sessions) for physician-referred patients experiencing a range of diagnoses including but not limited to PTSD; treatment-resistant depression; eating disorders; substance use disorder; OCD; and end-of-life distress within an evidence-based, decolonized, and equity-informed community of practice group therapy model.
The Roots to Thrive team is led by regulated healthcare professionals, including Dr. Shannon Dames, RN, MPH, EdD, and Dr. Pamela Kryskow, MD. All team members have been specifically trained in supporting and facilitating legal psychedelic therapy. The entire team includes over twenty experienced physicians, nurses, psychiatrists, registered clinical counselors, Indigenous knowledge keepers, somatic therapists, cultural and spiritual care practitioners, and trained facilitators.
“To thrive, humans need meaning, purpose and connection,” states Dr. Shannon Dames, who co-developed the framework for Roots to Thrive. “When these basic needs are met, we can shift our experience of distress and despair. This experience, using the Roots to Thrive community of practice [group support] model for psilocybin-assisted and ketamine-assisted therapies, underscores the value of healing in relationship with others.”
Through its partnership with Vancouver Island University (VIU), Roots to Thrive also provides practicum mentorship and training for Canada’s first-ever, graduate certificate-level Psychedelic-assisted Therapy Program, offered by the VIU Faculty of Health Sciences and Human Services. This program was developed by Roots to Thrives Dr. Shannon Dames, who is also a Professor of Nursing and Health Professional-Investigator at VIU, and Dr. Pamela Kryskow, who is also an Adjunct Professor at VIU.
The results of Roots to Thrives programs are currently being reviewed for publication. After one year of serving nearly 200 patients, participants are self-reporting significant positive results for depression, PTSD, anxiety and life/work functionality. Roots to Thrive currently has over 800 people on its waiting list for its 12-week, ketamine-assisted group therapy program.
Says Chelle Sheehan, a participant in Roots to Thrives first-in-Canada psilocybin-assisted group therapy program for people facing life-threatening illness:
“The effect this experience has had on me has been so dramatic I barely know how to express it. And the results are constantly increasing. To be able to participate at no cost was a miracle for me. The only reason my story is so successful, I think, isn’t so much about the session with psilocybin as much as it’s the format of the entire eight weeks, and the support afterward: the care, the love, the support, how the team got to know us, with everyone identifying with and listening to one another.”
Research
Research into psychedelic-assisted therapies is remerging. Studies demonstrate positive outcomes in the treatment of depression, PTSD, addiction, and end-of-life distress (Carhart-Harris & Goodwin, 2017). In particular, ketamine has demonstrated significant positive mental health outcomes in mood disorder patients (Brachman et al., 2016; Conley et al., 2021; Krystal et al., 2017; McGowan et al., 2017), and medicines with a psychedelic modality are having significant impacts on depression, PTSD, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), all of which are common comorbidities in addiction (Guss, Krause, & Sloshower, 2020; Ly et al., 2018; Magaraggia, Kuipers, & Schreiver, 2021; Wong, 2017).
RTT, RTT-KaT, and RTT-PaT continue to be developed in a program of research to ensure we are maximizing benefits. Thus far, the program continues to receive positive feedback and is demonstrating significantly positive results on the most common mental health conditions in Canada (Dames & Javorski, 2018; Dames, 2022; Dames, Kryskow, & Watler, 2022; Kryskow et al., 2022; Masuda, Kryskow, Dames, 2022; Moyer et al., 2022), providing significant relief for various mental health conditions
RTT Related Reference List
Dames, S. (2022). Root Strength: A Health and Care Professionals’ Guide to Minimizing Stress and Maximizing Thriving. Elsevier Textbook.
Dames, S. & Javorski, S. (2018). Sense of Coherence, a Worthy Factor toward Nursing Student and New Graduate Satisfaction with Nursing, Goal Setting Affinities, and Coping Tendencies. Quality Advancement in Nursing Education, (4)1. doi: 10.17483/2368-6669.1108. Role: lead author, percent contribution: 95%.
Dames, S., Kryskow, P., Watler, C. (2022). A Cohort-Based Case Report: The Impact of Ketamine-Assisted Therapy Embedded in a Community of Practice Framework for Healthcare Providers with PTSD and Depression. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.803279
Dames, S., Young, W., Krigolson, O., Zhang, K., Stoller, L., Bartle, R. (2022). Changes in Cognitive Control Following a Novel Resilience-Focused Nursing Educational Program: An Exploratory Study. Quality Advancement in Nursing Education, (8)2. doi: 10.17483/2368-6669.1330
Tsang, V., Tao, B., Dames, S., Kryskow, P. (2022). Ketamine-assisted Therapy: Safety Data. Data Collected, now in publication process.
Masuda, V., Kryskow, P., Dames, S. (2022). Case Report: Psilocybin-Assisted Group Therapy for Anxiety and Depression in Patients with Serious Cancer Diagnosis. Data Collected, now in publication process.
Moyer, R., Tsang, V., Kryskow, P., Walsh, Z. & Dames, S. (2022). A Pilot Study Comparing a Community of Practice Program with and without Concurrent Ketamine-assisted Therapy. Data Collected, now in publication process.
