Local therapist named to Order of Canada

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on December 19, 2024.

Submitted photo James Kevin Cameron, the Lethbridge-based executive director of the Centre for Trauma Informed Practices, has been recognized for his work by being named a member of the Order of Canada.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

He led the crisis response after the April 28, 1999 shooting at W.R. Myers High School in Taber, worked on the response of the Humboldt Broncos bus tragedy and assisted the Lethbridge School Division and Chinook High School deal with the response to a situation involving members of its football team.

Now James Kevin Cameron, the Lethbridge-based executive director of the Centre for Trauma Informed Practices, has been recognized for his work by being named a member of the Order of Canada. He is one of 88 people including 63 members recognized on Wednesday by Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary Simon, Governor General of Canada.

The Taber shooting occurred eight days after the Columbine massacre and shortly after Cameron was put in charge by the Alberta government of a 13-month initiative in which he studied traumatic aftermath from a humans systems approach. Through consultation with trauma sites and American sites which had experienced school shootings, Cameron developed the Traumatic Event Systems Model.

And working with the RCMP’s Behavioural Sciences Unit, Cameron developed Canada’s first comprehensive, multi-disciplinary violence threat risk assessment model.

In an interview Wednesday morning, Cameron said the honour “feels fantastic in all honesty.”

Created in 1967, the Order of Canada has recognized more than 7,600 people from all walks of life and sectors of society.

“The contributions of these trailblazers are varied, yet they have all enriched the lives of others and made a difference to his country. Their grit and passion inspire us, teach us and show us the way forward,” says the Governor General of Canada website.

Of Cameron, it states he is “a psychotherapist and violence prevention expert dedicated to protecting children and communities in Canada. This esteemed executive director of the Centre for Trauma Informed Practices has partnered with leaders in government, law enforcement and schools, and trained thousands in best practices for responding to traumatic events.”

Cameron said because of the work he does, he was actually expecting bad news when he got the call.

“Some of my work is high-end violence risk assessment, others is trauma response work so when my office said the Governor General’s office called, I, in all honesty, thought they were calling because it was a threat assessment case that somebody in government knew me and wanted me to give a second opinion on.

So when he returned the call and got good news – which Cameron says he doesn’t hear often – he was shocked.

Cameron was working for the Horizon School District when the Taber shooting occurred and afterwards he started collaborating with the RCMP and then the Secret Service in the United States, he recalled.

“We ended up developing the dominant model in Canada,” which is also used here in Lethbridge, that model being called Violence Threat Risk Assessment.

“Most communities in the country have, even though the average citizen isn’t aware of it, Violence Threat Risk Assessment or VTRA protocols with police, schools, mental health and others.”

Because he’s a therapist, Cameron also leads efforts to help in the aftermath of tragedies.

The Governor General’s office keeps information about nominations confidential so Cameron isn’t sure which element of his work prompted the award but he suspects his trauma side plays a big role.

Tragedies he’s worked on, aside from the Taber shooting, also included providing leadership on the Humboldt Broncos tragedy which claimed the life of Lethbridge’s Logan Boulet. He also worked on the case B.C. teenager Amanda Todd who hung herself after enduring cyberbulling.

“All these different other tragedies is what probably drew the most attention to my work, I suppose,” he said.

The Humboldt crash had a local connection in Kevin Garinger, who along with his brother Ken years ago worked for the Palliser School Division, said Cameron.

Kevin Garinger, who is director of education and CEO in Humboldt for the Horizon School Division No. 205, called Cameron at the time of the crash that killed 16 and told him he was also president of the Broncos.

“So here was Kevin in this complex situation of being the president of the hockey club, the face of a lot of the early communications and also the director of education for the entire school district,” Cameron recalled.

Cameron was a district counsellor for Horizon when Taber happened. He was just finishing his Masters degree in family therapy at the time. Cameron is also a social worker.

His work started increasing across the country after Taber because in threat assessment, the focus previously quickly defaulted to the question of what’s wrong with the person holding the weapon, he said.

And while that is a reasonable question, said Cameron, what if family and peer dynamics exist in the background and what if there was a conspiracy of two or people involved?

Cameron said through Secret Service research into school shootings, it became known there can be “puppet masters” egging the shooters on.

“I started looking at violence differently, more dynamically. And so the model I developed is a multi-disciplinary model that looks at the individual and the dynamics that may contribute to risk or lower risk,” Cameron said.

The same approach was taken to trauma, he said.

In the beginning days of the development of the VTRA model, the then Lethbridge College was also involved with Cameron and the RCMP for the first three or four years of training across the country, he recalled.