Infinitely Polar Bear:
Free Film Screening to Raise Awareness of Mental Illness

Saturday, October 10 at 10am

Cineplex Cinemas New Glasgow

612 East River Road, New Glasgow, NS

Mental Illness Awareness Week is October 4 – 10, 2015, and in New Glasgow there will be a free film screening to raise awareness of mental illness and its impact on families.

Infinitely Polar Bear will be screened at 10 am, Saturday, October 10 at Cineplex Cinemas on East River Road, New Glasgow. This will be the first showing of this film in Nova Scotia, a film that was screened last year at international film festivals, including Sundance, Toronto and Vancouver.

The film is the true story of a father with Bipolar who tries to win back his wife by attempting to take full responsibility of their two young, spirited daughters. The film was written and directed by Maya Forbes, telling the story of her father.  

The film is being shown on the last day of Mental Illness Awareness Week, a cause that is very personal for the organizers, Elaine Garland and Cecilia McRae, of the Pictou County Mental Illness Family Support Group.

Cecilia and Elaine’s family’s have both been touched by mental illness. Both sit on the Board of the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia, and with support from that organization were able to start the Pictou County support group they now co-facilitate.

The Pictou County Mental Illness Family Support Group is fundraising to make the free screening   possible, and the event is being presented in partnership with the Aberdeen Health Foundation.

“The Aberdeen Health Foundation is committed to mental health initiatives and to raising awareness about the Sandbar Mental Health Endowment, a fund that supports mental health treatment and      programs in our community,” says Susan Malcolm of the Aberdeen Health Foundation.

The Foundation is also sponsoring tickets, to provide some of the 200 free seats the organizers hope to have available.

For those wanting to sponsor seats, or in the event the free seats are filled, tickets are $8, including taxes, this is a special ticket price that is being offered by Cineplex for this event. To sponsor or reserve seats contact Elaine at (902) 695-6118. 

To read more about MIAW and the efforts of the PCMIFSG to raise awareness and reduce stigma please visit here.

Mental Illness Awareness Week: opening Canadians’ eyes

A letter to the editor published in today's edition of The Chronicle Herald:

By Stephen Ayer (pictured)

Mental Illness Awareness Week, Oct. 2-8, is an annual national public education campaign designed to help open the eyes of Canadians to the reality of mental illness. The week was established in 1992 by the Canadian Psychiatric Association. It is now co-ordinated by the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health in co-operation with its member organizations, including the Schizophrenia Society of Canada, as well many other supporters across Canada.

As a kick-off event for the week, the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia (SSNS) presented a special screening last Sunday of the movie The Soloist, based on the true story of Nathaniel Ayers, a musician who develops schizophrenia and becomes homeless. The screenplay by Susannah Grant is based on the book The Soloist by Steve Lopez, a columnist for The Los Angeles Times.

The same day, the society also highlighted the recovery journey of Laura Burke, a young Nova Scotian who lives with schizophrenia, by screening Superhero — A Visual Poem, a documentary short film featuring Ms. Burke’s spoken word poetry. Ms. Burke was honoured during Mental Illness Awareness Week in Ottawa last year as a 2010 Champion of Mental Health.

Today, the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia is partnering with other local mental health organizations and supporters to present the Fourth Annual Festival of Hope, a celebration of hope, healing and recovery. This free event takes place from 3 to 8 p.m. at the Olympic Hall, 2304 Hunter St. (corner of Cunard and Windsor in Halifax).

The core belief of the SSNS is that people with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia can live a life of meaning and purpose. The society’s focus is to promote the goal that each individual will be able to return to a quality of life which meets each person’s own perception of needs and expectations.

The vision of the SSNS is to reach all Nova Scotians who are directly or indirectly affected by schizophrenia — to focus on the individual, not the illness, to promote wellness and recovery, and to reduce the stigma and discrimination so often associated with mental illness.

The society’s mission is to improve the quality of life for those affected by schizophrenia through education, support programs, influencing public policy, and supporting research. The SSNS provides a community-based network of knowledgeable and dedicated volunteers whose personal experience with the illness allows them to share their stories of hope and recovery with people affected by schizophrenia for the first time.

Stephen Ayer is executive director of the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia. He lives with a mental illness and experienced homelessness in the 1990s. Dr. Ayer is a 2009 recipient of an Inspiring Lives Award from the Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia and the CMHA — Nova Scotia Division.

Photograph by Ryan Taplin / Metro Halifax

Mental Illness Awareness Week: Canada Stands Ready for Positive Change

An opinion piece posted on October 4th by the Mental Health Commission of Canada:

Op-Ed to coincide with Mental Illness Awareness Week

By Louise Bradley (pictured)

I have worked in the mental health field in Canada for over three decades, and I can say without exaggeration that never before have I seen such a high level of awareness about mental illness in this country. At last, mental health and mental illness are taking centre stage.

From coast to coast to coast, Canadians are stepping forward to talk publicly about their own personal experiences with mental health problems and mental illnesses, and by taking this courageous action, they are making a real difference to countless others.

In September, after 17-year-old high school student Chris Howell, who had been bullied since grade school, committed suicide, 150 friends and family gathered in front his school to mourn his loss and call for an end to bullying. “I just want to stop it,” Chris’s mother Judy told the Hamilton Spectator. “I don’t want anyone else to have to pay.”

For their part, after their son Jack, a first-year student at Queen’s University, took his own life last year, Eric and Sandra Windeler established The Jack Project, a national program to help Canadian youth achieve optimal mental health as they transition from late high school into their college, university or independent living years.

And then there are people like Harmony Brown, Jeremy Bennett, Roberta Price, Shana Calixte, and Steeve Hurdle, who are this year’s “faces” in the Face Mental Illness Campaign coordinated by the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health as part of this week’s Mental Illness Awareness Week national public education campaign.

By sharing their personal stories, these five, too, are helping to end stigma and bring mental illness out of the shadows forever.

Today, hundreds of organizations across the country are working tirelessly to raise public awareness about mental health problems and mental illnesses through advocacy and by providing services and supports to those in need.

Canadian companies, including Bell Canada, RBC, Great-West Life and Canada Post, are investing millions of dollars to raise awareness about mental health, improve children’s and workplace mental health, and support organizations on the mental health front lines.

Governments across the country are also addressing mental health in more meaningful ways with new strategies, action plans and investments.

Thousands more individual Canadians are empowering themselves by learning how to spot the signs of mental health problems in family, friends and even themselves through courses being offered by Mental Health First Aid Canada. To date, over 42,000 Canadians have become mental health first aiders.

It is little wonder we are seeing such a ground swell of action and support for mental health.

Canadians have woken up to the fact that ignoring mental health is detrimental to individuals, families, and communities, as well as our society and economy as a whole.

They are becoming aware that there is no health without mental health, and that no one is immune from mental illnesses. This year alone, more than seven million Canadians—that is one in five people—will experience a mental illness personally, and in turn, this will impact family, friends and colleagues.

We are making progress in changing attitudes about mental health, but there is still much work to be done.

We need to be doing more to improve access to mental health services, decrease stigma, support the needs of families caring for ill relatives, invest in research spanning the full spectrum of issues relating to mental health and mental illness, promote mental health, and prevent mental illness so that every Canadian has the opportunity to achieve the best possible mental health and well-being. All this and more will be addressed in the first-ever Mental Health Strategy for Canada, which the Mental Health Commission of Canada will release next year.

What can you do to help?

To start, I urge all Canadians to pledge to the cause of mental health, not just during this Mental Illness Awareness Week, but 365 days a year, by supporting a family member, a friend, a colleague, or a neighbour living with a mental health problem or mental illness and helping them build a better life for themselves. And potentially everyone will have a role to play in bringing the Mental Health Strategy for Canada to life and ensuring it has maximum impact.

Now more than ever, we have an opportunity to build a society that values and promotes mental health and helps people living with mental health problems and mental illnesses to lead meaningful and productive lives.

This will require some fundamental changes to our systems of mental health care and also to our collective way of thinking about mental illness, but if the past year is anything to go by, Canadians are ready to take on this challenge and ready, willing and able to work together to achieve positive change.

Louise Bradley is President and CEO of the Mental Health Commission of Canada.

Image credit

Also see:

Housing first for the mentally ill: Former MP wants changes to assist those in need