It's a bit of a walk to get to Brad Steyn's office at North Slave Correctional Centre (NSCC).

There's a flight of stairs, plenty of doors - all of which are locked, either someone will buzz the person through or they have a key - and a couple turns before making it there.

But it's worth the trip for some of the inmates at the jail, it seems. Steyn, a counsellor at NSCC, said that counselling here isn't quite the same as it is for the outside world.

"There are so many different variables and ways of doing things," he said. "When I have somebody sitting in front of me, my philosophy is, 'how do I support that person in the moment?'"

Steyn explained that an inmate cannot go out and work on themselves the same way an everyday citizen could in their daily life. "They're limited in what they can do to help themselves, in terms of progressing," Steyn said. "In my view, so long as they are engaged here, in a session, and I see them on a regular basis, then hopefully I can see some level of progress in an environment such as this."

Steyn said he deals with around 12 to 15 inmates on a weekly basis, which makes up a little less than a third of NSCC's total population. A session can last anywhere between 15 minutes to hour, he added.

Whether those progression limits will ever change is a tough question to answer, said Steyn.

"I'd like to think that for individuals that are very serious about working on their well-being, working on their addiction, there is an opportunity for them to get better, so to speak, and work through why they're here. But, that's one of the challenges we have to recognize," he said. "All I can do is be present in the moment in terms of how to support them."

There are some similarities between counselling in a jail versus the outside world. For one, all of the inmates Steyn works with are men. And like how it's hard getting men to go to therapy outside of jail, it's still hard to get them to go from inside one, he added.

"There's a lot of stigma around mental health and well-being. Especially here, for a number of reasons," Steyn explained. "Based on people who come into the system here, obviously there's this kind of 'I got to put up a front, be tough,'" he said.

But when those same men step into Steyn's room, they break down into tears, he noted, explaining that the tough environment makes for little room to be vulnerable, barring his office, 

In fact, the environment can be what pushes an inmate to the point of seeking counselling, said Steyn. That can also become a bit of a pleasant surprise, by the sounds of it.

"One of the guys I'm working with, he came into my office, not knowing at all what I do. When I explained to him what I do and I said 'just give it a shot' he came back a couple of sessions later and said 'wow, this isn't as bad as I thought it would be.'"

Oct. 10 is national mental health day. For Steyn, counselling matters because everyone, inmate or not, will have bouts with their mental health incidents. That, and there are some success stories in his line of work that serve as positive reminders.

"One inmate came in about six months ago. Pretty much straight off the bat, he came into my office and said, 'I want to be helped, I want to over come this.' And from the get-go he was very engaged in coming to see me every week," Steyn explained. "Now, he's in post treatment. He does a weekly program with his group and the person that helps him in that community."

Steyn raised his hand, saying he can count on it the number of guys that he thinks could have a chance at being successful. That inmate is one of them, he said.