‘What is wrong with the Mental Health system’ workshop Thursday, November 30th
By Contributor
With opioid overdoses accounting for more deaths in Canada than car accidents, rising levels of youth in distress but with inadequate support, no single institution can successfully address the mental health emergency without collaboration.
On Thursday (November 30), the public is invited to a workshop to discuss this complex crisis and explore collaborative ways forward.
“I felt called to start these dialogues on mental health as a place to share our pain and look for solutions together. If there is an issue in your family or work, the best thing is often to talk about it. We need to do that with mental health, we need to talk as a community.” says Malin Christensson from Mental Wealth Emergence, the organizer of the event.
“We are grateful for the many non-profits and professionals working with mental health in our region, and events like ‘Starting the Conversation’ by the Bennets family. Yet there could be so much more collaboration between government agencies, schools, police and other organizations.”
About 1 in 5 Canadians experience mental illness each year. In fact, one in two Canadians have — or have had — a mental illness by the time they reach 40 years of age, according to the Mental Health Commission of Canada. Many must wait to get the care they need, while others don’t get any care or don’t get enough. The economic burden of mental illness in Canada is an estimated $51 billion per year including health care costs, lost productivity and reductions in health-related quality of life.
On November 30th, a free workshop ‘What is wrong with the mental health system?’ is taking place at the Kutenai Art Therapy Institute on 191 Baker Street, from 6 – 8 p.m. At the event, participants are welcomed to share their stories, practice personal and collective resilience and explore how collaboration for mental wellbeing could look like, by using interactive methods.
This is the third workshop organized by Malin Christensson and the group Mental Wealth Emergence, a team of counselors, social workers and community activists.
“At my school, The Forest Path, I see increasing anxiety among the kids. I hear the need for addressing eco-grief and the worry of parents raising kids in these times. How can we make sure the kids of today won’t be homeless and overdosed as adults? We need to go to the root of the symptoms, beyond individual diagnoses but to the societal structures that feed trauma, poverty, and isolation. And we need to go to the sources of wellbeing and connection.”
