The Dr. Nancy Hall Award

The CMHA has launched the Dr. Nancy Hall Public Policy Leadership Award. It is in recognition of the powerful and positive effect on mental health issues in British Columbia.

Dr. Nancy Hall, the former provincial mental health advocate in British Columbia.  Hall was valued friend of the CMHA and many of her ideas provided light and inspiration to many members of the CMHA.

In response to Dr. Hall’s contributions to mental health advocacy the CMHA established the ‘Speaking Up, Speaking Out,’ fund.  The board launched fund with a $50 000 contribution with goal of raising a  $1 000 000 endowment.

Dr. Hall was a powerful voice for people who had experienced the mental health system.  In 2010 she received the BC Division Leadership Award and the 2010 Clarence Hincks Award.

Nancy put a powerful definition forward of her life’s work, “Advocacy is the act of speaking in the support of human concerns or need. Where people have their own voice, advocacy means making sure they are heard; where they have difficulty speaking it means providing help; where they have no voice it means speaking for them.”

The first recipient of the Dr. Nancy Hall award is Michael Schratter.  Michael has travelled 32,000 km around the world by bike to battle the stigma of mental health, one pedal at a time. Michael’s journey will end in November in Vancouver after he has completed 40,000 km across 30 countries and six continents.

Michael has built awareness about mental health around the world.

Find Michael’s story at www.ridedonthide.com

The Times They Are A Changin’

Peter Coleridge and Change at CMHA

The 100 year anniversary of the CMHA is fast approaching in 2018 and Peter Coleridge, CMHA CEO says change needs to come to the organization to keep pace with our changing country and communities.

The CMHA is in the midst of a national strategic planning process and Coleridge is looking for broad based contributions from across the CMHA.  He called for time, expertise and resources to build the impact of the CMHA on the community and on policy makers.

“We need to work to link messages to policy and program over the next few years.”

That clarion call was based on the acknowledgments of current progress, with a long way to go in certain areas.

The first step is to build a unified national voice and Coleridge says the role of the CMHA on policy has been diminished and, “we need to be out there provincially and nationally.”

Reasons for the lack of focus include: no strategic plan (CMHA staff and members you have a role to play in building the new plan!);  not leveraging strengths (more communication through the organization is needed); and develop a national fundraising plan (job #1 – because nothing else happens without financial resources).

“We are at a good point right now, but we need to build on strengths to create a new beginning:

-          Unique capacity in Canada

-          The ‘Framework for Support’ document, important and valuable and should be underpinning the work of the CMHA

-          Truly national organization – Imagine our ability

“We want to stay in the game, just change the plan.”

As people involved in the CMHA Coleridge hopes the message of planning change has a foundational knowledge, the Strategic Plan is NOT a ‘national office plan but an organization plan.

Expect the plan to not change the ‘what’ of the organization, but focus and refine the mission and function.  Look for change in how the CMHA works, and that change will require time effort and expertise from people across the CMHA.

The change process is expected to be measured and take 3-5 years.  The hope of the change is a strong and unified organization for the 100 year anniversary in 2018.

The CMHA is looking to articulate the link between mental health and human rights on the national stage, influence governments on  providing formal services to the people with mental health needs and make mental health an explicit part of the national and provincial health agendas.

Coleridge wants to hear from the people involved in CMHA about change.  Email him with one thing he can do as a leader and one thing you can do as a CMHA individual at pcoleridge@cmha.ca

Taking Crazy Back

Depression Can be a Laughing Matter

Former CBC journalist Tod Maffin was the first keynote speaker at the CMHA National Conference.  Maffin  opened with some hilarious stories  then got a little bit serious. Maffin shared his story of having a nervous breakdown the day after his publicly traded company launched its suite of software and his descent into mental illness. Combined with growing alcoholism and serious depression, Maffin recounted how alcohol kept him ‘normal.’ 

The question that started his healing, “Have you asked anyone for help?”

His personal story moved the audience to a standing ovation at the end of his address.

What next? Maffin had some clear advice, abolish presenteeism showing up in body but not mind.   Reward asking for help in the workplace. Finally, enough the studies-we know what the problem is, we need know what the problem is not enough money spent on care.  Studies kill people, because we spend money on paper, not on people.

Finally bring back crazy, good, loud, see things differently crazy, not insane. Favourite quote wa the last one, “Crazy gets shit done.”

Less than 2 days to go!

Less than 2 days until the conference and, for those who haven’t heard, we are booked solid!

Thank you so much to those who have helped plan, prepare and promote the conference.  It is going to be outstanding.

For the next several days, we will be using the website to blog about the conference and share resources as they are made available to us.

If you have subscribed, but are not attending the conference, I encourage you to keep your subscription active so that you will be alerted about future conferences and events.

To those who are coming – we look forward to meeting you face to face!

 

 

Hotel News!

Hi all,

we have just learned that the conference hotel is completely booked for the conference!  So, for those of you who are still needing to book, we have identified a couple of options:

The Accent Inn (across the street from the Coast Capri – our conference hotel)

Quote Group #3348 to get Conference rates starting at $99 + taxes.

or

The Prestige Hotel (about 1 mile away from the Conference hotel)

Tell them you are with the CMHA National Conference to get rates starting at $129 + taxes.

We look forward to seeing you here!

Hotel room block being released this week!

If you are planning on attending the conference but have not yet booked your accommodation, you might want to know that the rooms we have blocked will be released on August 12!  After that, rooms will be available to you and anyone coming to the Okanagan.  The group rate could still be available to you, but only by phoning their central reservation line at 1-800-663-1144.  Don’t forget to quote the code:  CCH-GFC11813.

Conference Subsidy Update

We are pleased to announce that we have been able to offer 8 complimentary conference registrations to consumers and families!

Thank you so much to our sponsors for making this possible.

A note to those who applied for the subsidy:  We are currently responding to all those who applied and hope to have all responses out to you by the end of next week. Thanks in advance for your patience with us as we work through them all!