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Dr. Tanya Lentz, R. Psych. is a registered psychologist in Newfoundland and Labrador and in the Northwest Territories, with over 20 years of experience providing care for diverse populations, including newcomers. Dr. Lentz is a valued member of the N4 Advisory Committee and serves as an N4 subject matter expert where she shares her expertise with the wider N4 community through webinars and trainings on topics ranging from the parentification of newcomer children and youth to professional boundaries for newcomer-serving professionals.
Psychology was not initially on Dr. Lentz’s radar when she began university – instead, she planned to be a virologist studying Ebola. At the time, she was also volunteering as a peer support worker, which sparked a passion. “A colleague of mine was like, you know, you can do that as profession where you help people on a day-to-day basis,” Dr. Lentz recalls. Her time as a peer support worker also contributed to her awareness of the challenges that newcomers face when coming to Canada, and the importance of systems-level interventions in the health care system.
Dr. Lentz switched career paths, and she went on to ultimately obtain a PhD in Clinical Neuropsychology and Clinical Psychology from the University of Victoria. She then accepted a role at the Janeway Children’s Health and Rehabilitation Centre, in St. John’s, where she served for nearly eight years as the head of the Pediatric Neuropsychology Service and the responsible psychologist for the Rehabilitation Division.
Dr. Lentz worked with many newcomers in this capacity and found that a family-centred approach was particularly important when working with newcomer children. This often required taking a multidisciplinary approach to care and taking into account the family’s past experiences, and other priorities in their lives. For example, a patient who had spent time in a refugee clinic may have been prevented from accessing adequate education and health care, requiring Dr. Lentz and her team to work collaboratively with other health care providers and the child’s school when developing a treatment plan. Dr. Lentz supported the organization’s goal for enhancing equity by serving on the Janeway’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and was proud to be involved in implementing an easily accessible professional interpretation service for the hospital – a best practice for serving newcomer patients and families.
One silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic was that the Janeway, like many health care organizations, was forced to expand virtual care options. Dr. Lentz notes that for a hospital with such a large catchment area (the Janeway serves all of Newfoundland and Labrador), this made many services more accessible to patients. Dr. Lentz noticed that being able to come less often to the hospital in person reduced stress and costs for many patients and expanded the ability of interpreters to provide professional interpretation services in a COVID-safe manner.
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the human health resource (HHR) crisis – something which Dr. Lentz is no stranger to. In 2021, she transitioned from the Janeway to a full-time practice at the Neurospark Clinic, which she had founded several years before. As a passionate proponent of public-based care, Dr. Lentz was reluctant to make the transition from public to private mental health care, but her caseload simply was not sustainable and as a result, patient care was not optimal. She shares additional details in this CBC News article.
Many of Dr. Lentz’s psychologist colleagues also experienced a similar impact of the HHR crisis and chose to move from a public health care system setting to private practice. She’s concerned about this trend – fewer health care providers in practice means that there isn’t anyone to supervise psychology residents and new psychologists, furthering the HHR crisis and adversely impacting patient care. For the health authority, this has meant pausing the acceptance of psychology residents, a group that Dr. Lentz used to supervise. As well, less public services reduces the equity of care for newcomers and other patient populations. Dr. Lentz would like to see us create a health care system that’s both patient and provider-centred. “If we design systems for patients by patients, and for providers by providers, we’re going to get a system that’s way more efficient.” She continues to advocate for mental health services in the public sector.
While it’s easy to be siloed in health care, expansion of her knowledge basis continues to be an integral part of Dr. Lentz’s process as both a provider and private practice owner – she does a lot of reading outside the field of psychology and feels that stretching herself and growing her perspectives make her a better provider. This includes speaking with her clinic staff about how to make their services more inclusive and looking for solutions to the ongoing challenges of how to provide services for newcomers through private practice. It also includes being part of the N4 network, “being part of N4 has been a really fantastic journey, and has expanded me as well, and has pushed me to expand other organizations – N4 has just been a really great experience for me in this journey of helping people who are new to the country.”
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