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Home » CMHA Kelowna

New Mental Health Course Created by Men for Men

December 8, 2021 By Jessica Samuels Leave a Comment

HeChangedIt and Discovery College, a Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Kelowna initiative, have collaborated to create and release a new course designed to engage and support men.

The It’s Tough To Talk is designed as a ‘go at your own pace’ style course and is entirely free and available through the he. app.

The course is the first collaboration between HeChangedIt, a mobile platform specifically for men, and Discovery College. “When we were working to develop this course we knew we had to do the research to really find out what was important to men when it comes to opening up about what’s going on in their lives,” said Discovery College Lead Beki Hardcastle. “So we took the time to bring a group of men from our community together and talked to them about what they found to be helpful, and in turn, incorporated that into our course.”

It’s Tough To Talk focuses on topics like developing skills around communication and relationship building. Hardcastle says the course also encourages men to practice the skills they have learned and to talk online to other men who are completing the course. “It’s not just about learning new tools, it’s also about building a community and knowing you’re not on your own finding it hard to talk about things.”

“We are so grateful for the work that Discovery College and CMHA Kelowna do on a daily basis,” says HeChangedIt co-founder Candace Chisholm. “It has been extremely rewarding to work with this organization and to help provide another way to share help and support with as many men as possible.”

A dozen men were involved in the creation and design of It’s Tough To Talk. Some shared their personal stories on the course videos as a way to further break down the feelings of isolation that some men feel when it comes to talking about their mental health.

After more than eight months of development the course is now available to any man, 18 and up, who wants to sign up. It can be accessed by downloading the free he. app on any smart device.

Hardcastle says her hope is that through this course, they’ve created a place where men can be real about how they are feeling.  “At the end of the day, it’s tough to talk – and it can be even more so for men. So we want to provide a platform, some skills, and knowledge that help men share what they are going through and a way to manage through it.”

For more information on the It’s Tough to Talk course go to discoverycollegekelowna.com/our-courses/its-tough-to-talk/

 


 

About HeChangedIt
He Changed It is a mobile app created with the intent of a pro active approach to health and well being for men. Encouraging “Balance Before Burnout”, the he. app provides tools, resources, and most importantly, a peer community, to work through obstacles that hinder a balanced life. The app focuses on mental, emotional, physical, soul and social fitness. He Changed It

 

About Discovery College
CMHA Kelowna’s Discovery College offers free educational courses for anyone and everyone. Each course is developed and delivered in collaboration with people who have knowledge and personal experience in each topic area and are designed to increase a person’s skills, abilities and confidence to self-manage their own mental health and wellbeing. Discovery College

Filed Under: News Tagged With: CMHA Kelowna, Discovery College, free men's mental health app, He Changed It, men's mental health, men's mental health course

Kelowna podcaster giving back through donation to CMHA Kelowna Branch

November 22, 2021 By Jessica Samuels Leave a Comment

Lucas Cullen understands the need to talk, and also to listen. He does that on his weekly podcast.

But more importantly, he understands the need to act.

For those reasons, and many more, Lucas Cullen is supporting the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Kelowna branch.

Cullen recently brought his cheque to the CMHA Kelowna office, then had his photo taken with a much larger version. His smile indicates what his heart is feeling.

“It’s a very surreal feeling, and anytime you get to give back, you do because you know it’s going to a good place, and it’s for something that obviously bigger than all of us,” said Cullen. “I know I wouldn’t be where I am today without the help of professionals. That’s what’s most important, and anytime I can give back I want to. I know that will be till the day I die. I owe it to that.”

Today Cullen is supporting CMHA Kelowna with his donation of $1,400, but it’s a culmination of what he started more than a year ago when he launched his website www.strugglecreatesstrength.com.

Over the course of the past year, Cullen discovered that while he started out to help himself,  he could help many others who were struggling as well.

“The reason I started this is that I felt I was in a rut myself, and I wanted to basically showcase that we all have these ups and downs, we all have our stories, and I really just wanted to give other people hope through seeing other people’s stories,” explained Cullen. “Through seeing those struggles, through seeing that it’s real people that are struggling, we can actually learn that we can actually relate to all of these people. These relatable stories actually give us an opportunity to speak what we’re feeling, what we’re experiencing and what struggles we’re actually encountering.”

Cullen hosts the weekly Struggle Creates Strength Podcasts. You can find all the episodes, including his most-recent conversation with Morgan Skinner, who excelled at hockey until a series of concussions took her out of the game, here. He’s also spoken with Josh McLaughlin, another hockey player, and with Tyler Smith, a member of the Humboldt Broncos who survived the bus crash which took the lives of his teammates, coaches and friends.

“Through listening to these stories, I wanted to take a leap of my own, which was pushing myself, because I had obviously taken myself from severe struggle and pain and a lot of depression, and all forms of different mental health struggles, and actually translated that into something positive,” said Cullen. “I wanted to do something of even greater impact, which I saw as exemplifying that through running.

“So I embarked on a couple of crazy journeys.”

November, or Movember, is known as Canadian Men’s Health Month.

Ironically, this year’s theme is Move For Your Mental Health.

Lucas Cullen certainly took that theme to heart this past summer with a series of runs which tested his mental fortitude.

He took part in a 52.5 kilometer run through the mountains in Victoria.

He then travelled to Ontario and ran from Guelph to Goderich. That event, wait for it… 121-km.

He finished his trek with a 40-km run in Kelowna.

“Every single run was, obviously, it was a lot of physical pain. But every single time it did get tough, I kept thinking about the cause of it, and even my own struggles relating back to the cause,” said Cullen. “But I was also thinking about the people who were struggling, and who’ve been through a lot, or are going through a lot. I’m there just showing, even if you were once encountering these mental struggles, where it’s a struggle to get out of bed, eventually at some point I believe you can bring yourself to a point where you’re kind of inducing pain on yourself because you want to challenge yourself for positive reasons – instead of the strain and struggle we can’t necessary control.”

Cullen started a Gofundme.org page when he started his series of runs.

“It wasn’t even necessarily about the money. It was about creating conversation,” added Cullen. When you set out on these fundraisers, even though people may not donate, they’re going to talk about it.

“It’s always a bonus to be able to create something and create conversation in the meantime.”

Well, the support for Lucas Cullen’s runs did pour in.

Wendy Wright, CMHA Kelowna’s Fund Development Manager, was there to receive the donation.

“I think first of all, he’s to be commended for giving a very brave and bold voice to a movement. He’s helping many who are struggling by being an ambassador in the community and saying, ‘Look at what I’ve gone through, look at what I’ve achieved, and look at what’s next’,” said Wright. “By supporting CMHA Kelowna, Lucas is highlighting and showcasing what we are doing, which, in a nutshell, is mental health for all. How do we get that? Well, we get to that through our housing and homelessness services, our Foundry Kelowna mental health services for youth and families, and our Discovery College programs. There’s a lot we do and we want people to know and understand that there’s access out there if you are hurting, if you are struggling.”

To donate to the Canadian Mental Health Association Kelowna branch, please click here.

And, we thank you!

Filed Under: News Tagged With: CMHA Kelowna, fundraising, mental health, support, Wellness

Canadian Mental Health Association on Reconciliation and mental health

June 21, 2021 By Jessica Samuels Leave a Comment

Statement From CMHA Kelowna CEO

My heart aches over the discovery of the unmarked burial ground of 215 children in Kamloops on the site of a former residential school. It aches with the knowledge that there are so many more to be found and it aches with the knowledge that this has come as news to so many. 
There is hope however, that this is a moment of transformation where we acknowledge that we can all do and be better. CMHA Kelowna stands by the Truth and Reconciliation calls to action published in 2015 and over the years our organization has taken steps, albeit small, to inform our own Indigenous cultural competency. This past year we prioritized this effort through the official forming of an Equity Diversity and Inclusion Committee that is dedicated to supporting a CMHA Kelowna that fosters the health and wellbeing of all people. We know it’s more than just committees. It’s in our actions.  We’ve also embarked on additional Indigenous Cultural Training and used our platforms to raise Indigenous voices in our community. And, recognizing that we are part of  a larger system of historical racism and oppression, we are forming new common practices throughout our organization and challenge and question every aspect of CMHA Kelowna and the institutions and systems we are part of. No matter how tough that can be.
This is a journey, not a destination where we get to tick a box. Because we know that, we are constantly challenging our selves to examine and then dismantle our own actions that allow colonial practices to continue. Because once we know better, we must do better.
Shelagh Turner, CEO, CMHA Kelowna

CMHA National Statement

The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) is deeply troubled by the findings of the remains of 215 children in unmarked and undocumented graves at a residential school in Kamloops, BC. We extend our deepest condolences to those who are grieving and for whom this news reawakens or compounds pain and trauma.

We acknowledge that as the largest and one of the oldest providers of community mental health services in Canada, CMHA must take responsibility and the steps needed to address the harmful ways in which our mental health system has upheld racist and colonial practices. We call on our health care system and decision-makers to heed the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to support Indigenous communities’ calls to action on reconciliation, and particularly those in support of Indigenous mental health, healing, and well-being.

Canada’s Indigenous peoples have long known that many children died at the government and church-run residential schools that they were forced to attend. As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has stated, residential schools, a product of Canada’s colonial policies, endangered the health and well-being of the children who attended them; the physical, psychological and spiritual violence, neglect and harm from the forced separation of families has caused pain that has been passed from generation to generation. The tragedy in Kamloops reflects the long history of racism, violence and cultural genocide towards Indigenous peoples that did not end with the closure of residential schools. It continues to this day. Every day, Indigenous people live the very real impacts of systemic racism and colonialism, which affect their mental health and well-being.

Residential schooling denied many Indigenous children and their families the experiences of positive parenting, worthy community leaders, and a positive sense of identity and self-worth, which have structured and contributed to the systemic discrimination faced by Indigenous communities today.[1] Intergenerational trauma is felt within communities in the disproportionately high rates of suicide, which impact Indigenous peoples at a rate three times higher than non-Indigenous Canadians.[2] Communities continue to contend with the grief and trauma of the loss of the thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, pain which is compounded by government failures to take meaningful action to address this systemic violence and bring closure, justice and accountability for mourning families who still do not know what happened to their stolen sisters. Indigenous children continue to be overrepresented in Canada’s child welfare system despite the known mental health impacts of separating children from their families. Furthermore, the lack of access to clean water, health and mental health care, employment, education and safe housing are part of the daily psychological stresses and human rights violations experienced by many Indigenous communities in Canada.

CMHA fully supports the calls to action that the TRC published in its substantial 2015 report calling on the Government of Canada to advance its commitment to reconciliation.

To promote the well-being and mental health of Canada’s Indigenous peoples, the TRC recommended that the Government of Canada, and those in the health sector:

  • establish measurable goals, in consultation with Indigenous communities, to identify and close the gaps in health outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, and to publish annual progress reports and assess long-term trends, (with specific mental health indicators);
  • provide sustainable funding for existing and new Indigenous healing centres to address the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual harms caused by residential schools;
  • recognize the value of Indigenous healing practices and use them in the treatment of Indigenous patients;
  • increase the number of Indigenous professionals working in the health-care field, ensure the retention of Indigenous health-care providers in Indigenous communities, and provide cultural competency training for all healthcare professionals;[3]
  • take action on the calls to work with Indigenous communities to identify, document, maintain, commemorate, and protect residential school cemeteries, to provide the TRC with all records of the deaths of Indigenous children in residential schools, establish a National Residential School Student Death Register, and to respond to families’ wishes for appropriate commemoration ceremonies, markers, or reburials where requested.

In addition, the TRC report includes many other important calls to action in the areas of child welfare, land rights, education, language and cultural rights, justice and access to information about missing children and burials, all of which collectively contribute to healing and reconciliation and which impact and support the mental health and well-being of Canada’s Indigenous peoples.

There is much work to do to achieve these goals. CMHA has its own history of upholding racist and colonial practices that have had deep and lasting negative impacts on Indigenous people in Canada. The Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene, out of which CMHA and our modern mental health system developed, was rooted in colonial, racist and ableist health policies and failed to uphold the human rights of Indigenous children and their communities. We deeply regret this past and the harm it has caused Canada’s Indigenous peoples and know that there is still much work left to do to decolonize and apply an anti-oppression lens to our practices and policies within the mental health system today.

Across the CMHA federation, we will build on our existing work and set new standards that will support the recommendations of the TRC. Many CMHA branches, regions, and divisions across Canada have been engaging in meaningful partnerships with Indigenous organizations and leaders in the development and implementation of cultural programs and services, including land-based healing, supporting Indigenous-led mental health promotion within communities, valuing Indigenous healing practices and ways of working rooted in the principles of cultural safety and self-determination, and offering Indigenous cultural awareness training for staff members. There is still much work that we must do to ensure that we are supporting and advancing the goal of reconciliation.

In addition to our own commitment to advance reconciliation, CMHA calls on the Government of Canada to take immediate steps to work in partnership with Indigenous communities to act on the TRC’s recommendations.

For more information, please contact:

Katherine Janson
National Director of Communications
Canadian Mental Health Association
647-717-8674
[email protected]

[1] TRC, 135.

[2] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/99-011-X2019001

[3] http://trc.ca/assets/pdf/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf

Filed Under: News Tagged With: CMHA, CMHA Kelowna, CMHA Kelowna Statement, National Indigenous Peoples Day, Statement form the CEO, Truth and Reconciliation

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