People with acquired brain injuries face significant transitions, from hospital to home or from who they were to who they are now. These transitions have a huge impact on the everyday lives of survivors, as well as their as well as thei ...

In support of Mental Health, Tina and Craig Herman will be at Studio 10 Salon, in Campbell River, shaving all their head hair off on Saturday, April 14, 2018 at 11:00am. Mental illness has affected family and relatives of Tina and Craig ...

A network of Canadian mothers and families whose loved ones have died due to substance use, or hope for recovery, envision a new approach based on reducing harm, where people who use drugs are treated with respect, compassion and support ...

The Thunderbird Partnership Foundation is educating Canadians about the importance of land-based service delivery models and the First Nations Mental Wellness Continuum in providing mental health services--and preparing for and responding t ...

The second annual Nanaimo Women March On demonstration was held Saturday January 20, 2018, with an emphasis on intersectionality and the prevention of violence against women Focus on local efforts to prevent gender-based violence A ...

Annual Eating Disorders Awareness campaigns are launched across Canada during the first week of February. British Columbia's campaign will focus on orthorexia -- an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating Eating Disorders awareness c ...

Although the 12-step approach to recovery from alcoholism and addiction can be beneficial for some people, not everyone is comfortable with some of the more spiritual aspects of the programs The famous 12-step approach to recover ...

Thirty years of professional practice, combined with his own life-threatening battle with alcohol, convinced Michael Pond that harm reduction, “any positive change,” offers clients the best chance at beating addictions After two deca ...

Ann Dowsett-Johnston, journalist and author of Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol, says that there are three main factors that influence how people drink: marketing, pricing and accessibility Ann Dowsett-Johns ...

Social expectations of what male and female students should or should not do with respect to their own gender identities and gender relations directly affects their drinking patterns and health seeking behaviours Social expectations ...

Some people say mid-winter is the most depressing time of year—when cold and dark days, holiday bills, and already-lapsed new year’s resolutions catch up with us Whether you believe that or not, it’s never a bad time to reflect o ...

The $100-million donation to Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) from an anonymous benefactor is an extraordinary gift to the people of this city and beyond. It is also a symbol of a welcome cultural shift in how we appr ...

David Gratzer is a psychiatrist at CAMH. David Goldbloom is a psychiatrist, senior medical adviser at CAMH, and past chair of the Mental Health Commission of Canada. It may be the biggest change to mental-health-care services in five dec ...

VIMHS acting executive director Taryn O'Flanagan presents a talk titled The Mental Health Continuum, Depression and Anxiety: Effective ways of coping and supporting one another Image: Taryn O'Flanagan speaking at Brentwood College School o ...

Brentwood College student leaders and counseling staff hold an annual mental health and wellness day to help decrease stigma, increase awareness and promote resiliency image: Vancouver Island Mental Health Society acting executive direct ...

“Would we not avoid self medicating and future issues of homelessness and joblessness, plus families being broken and children thrown into foster care, if we took child and teen mental illness more seriously?” A Mission family with a men ...

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https://twitter.com/peoplefirstrad/status/928997312168382464

“Poverty negatively affects children’s physical, emotional and social development. We need to look after our most vulnerable: no child in BC should be limited because of poverty.” Data in the 2017 BC Child Poverty Report Card , relea ...

https://twitter.com/peoplefirstrad/status/932752644514467840

Mental-health advocates are praising a British Columbia police chief for his leadership after he made an impassioned plea for first responders to take care of their mental well-being Abbotsford Police Chief Bob Rich made his comments tow ...

The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign begins on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women November 25th and ends on International Human Rights Day December 10th The 16 Days of Activi ...

The B.C. government will reopen the Riverview psychiatric hospital in Coquitlam as a 105-bed, mental-health and addiction-wellness centre, but the B.C. Schizophrenia Society believes losing the beds at the Burnaby Centre for Mental Heal ...

In this month's Currents...Community good will goes a long way to help VIMHS residents...Anne Turner’s journey with art therapy gets public viewing...VIMHS opens 9-bed sobering centre in Campbell River...VIMHS joined the 2017 suicide pr ...

Most kids their age would be involved in after-school activities or hanging out at the mall. These adolescents, however, go home to look after a family member with a physical or mental disability. Their contributions are largely unheralded, ...

Trans youth report significant stress and mental health challenges, a profound lack of safety in navigating their daily lives, barriers to supportive health care, and worrying rates of poverty. Yet, there is immense hope. The Canadian ...

https://twitter.com/CMHACalgary/status/919959969268629510

18-year-old hockey player Myles Mattila has been recognized by the British Columbia Amateur Hockey Association for promoting education and awareness about mental health issues among young athletes The death of Rick Rypien inspires ment ...

Programs which address homelessness first, then provide supports, are more effective and economical than those requiring people to meet milestones (such as sobriety) prior to being housed Lethargy is an easy pitfall when considering the ...

“I could go on about my struggles as a child…but I am the person that I am today because of those different struggles and I think my mom was just trying to be a mom and it was hard for her…living with mental illness” Children of parent ...

Harm reduction remains unknown to most North Americans, despite affecting millions. Like the film’s subjects, its non-judgmental approach to health care has often been ignored, or hidden in plain sight The Stairs The Stairs follows ...

"As a small child, Von Allan had to cope with poverty, bullying, loneliness and his mother's severe mental health problems" but he found a way to cope; now his creativity speaks volumes Von Allan was born in Arnprior, Ontario in 1974 ...

Researcher suggests findings highlight a need to focus on mental health care for individuals with autism spectrum disorder Kyle Echakowitz says his transition from high school to college was not just stressful, it was downright "scary." ...

Members of the Rotary Club of Nanaimo, along with Sleep Country Canada and individual donors, have made a tremendous difference in the lives of Vancouver Island Mental Health residents Sponsor-a-Bed fundraising campaign VIMHS manager ...

“Art is a guarantee to sanity,” said Louise Bourgeois, a French-American artist who died in 2010 at the age of 98. She even went on to add, “…This is the most important thing I have said.” For Bourgeois, art — making art — was a tool for co ...

The definitive guide to bullying prevention and intervention, by best-selling author Barbara Coloroso, provides real solutions for a problem that affects young people all over the world Barbara Coloroso is a bestselling author and an ...

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https://twitter.com/CMHAOntario/status/905068166564515844

Brett Colton Mercer was born in Nanaimo on Aug. 31, 1987, to loving parents who eventually had five children. He died Aug. 19, 2017, of an accidental drug overdose, alone in a motel room in Hope, where he had recently landed a job with ...

Anne Turner credits art therapy with helping her move through various mental health challenges. One of her paintings has taken a prime spot in Nanaimo's 'gallery row' Gallery Row in Nanaimo Nanaimo's Gallery Row unveiled the 2017 sele ...

Vancouver Island Mental Health Society's sobering and assessment centre provides front line help 24/7 for people struggling with substance abuse and addiction VIMHS now provides services in Campbell River Vancouver Island Mental Heal ...

Whether due to stigma, poor insight, hopelessness or lack of access to care, many people who are mentally ill suffer in silence, sometimes for years We’re in the midst of an unprecedented health crisis, with fentanyl-related overdoses ...

The cost of providing services for homeless people with mental illness is so high that Canadian researchers are calling on policy-makers to seek alternatives ...

"We don’t have a co-ordinated, seamless system and that’s what we need. Addiction issues often stem from mental health issues, from poverty and homelessness. I have a background that takes a broad view of these things." Last week, B.C. p ...

July 28, 2017 -- To our community partners: After three and a half years, our executive director, Barnabas Walther will be leaving Vancouver Island Mental Health Society.  On behalf of the board of directors we would like to thank Barnabas ...

The idea is to create acceptance and to normalize the care of mental health in the workplace, the place where many people spend the majority of their waking hours Every week, half a million workers in Canada call in sick because of menta ...

A Windsor marketing firm has captured international recognition for its work in developing the Sole Focus Project for the local Canadian Mental Health Association Douglas Marketing Group has been honoured with an Aster Award and received ...

Vancouver Island Mental Health Society (VIMHS) held its 2017 annual general meeting (AGM) on June 26th. Barnabas Walther, executive director, spoke about the Society's 40-year history and its expanding continuum of care. Board chairperson V ...

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Some studies have shown that nicotine has antidepressant and antipsychotic properties, and some psychiatrists say it's best to let people admitted to the psychiatric ward continue to smoke during their stay People with a mental health di ...

The importance of the rights and obligations individuals have to one another is now accompanied by an emphasis on the right of individuals to live authentically The acceptance of physician-assisted death by the Supreme Court of Canad ...

"Unprecedented demand for mental health services among young people today is raising alarm among medical experts and transforming the financial plans of universities, businesses and governments" Stories emerge about the mental health o ...

https://twitter.com/WHO/status/875227896016769024

"It is now up to all of us to take this information and translate it into action to ensure that those positive outcomes are available to all who are in active addiction" The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) (formerly ...

"For Keats, it is only our acceptance of the suffering that is an inevitable part of life, and death, that can really open our eyes to the beauty that surrounds us, thereby enabling us to grow" Despite his death at the age of 25, Joh ...

June 13th is Men's Mental Health Awareness Day, lying in the middle of Canadian Men's Health Week. This is a chance to discuss what many see as a silent crisis in men's mental health. Both the federal and provincial government have offic ...

Quinn, a grade 9 student in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, concludes that mental health care is not very easily accessible for everyone, "even though when it comes down to it, it’s simply health care" Grade 9 students in the Collective Voi ...

Primary health care delivered with understanding and compassion for people who use drugs is the focus of a new Greater Victoria patient-oriented research study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Building on a prev ...

  If the human obsession with achievement is a subconscious attempt to deny--and transcend--mortality, what impact does it have on our beliefs, philosophies and societies? "In his 1973 book, The Denial of Death, the American ...

The treatment of mental illness has long been held back by the sense that disorders of emotion, thinking, and behavior somehow lack legitimacy and instead reflect individual weakness or poor life choices The human brain is a wonder. Thro ...

An unprecedented demand by young Canadians for mental health services is forcing universities, businesses and governments to quickly respond. Data collected from across the country and interviews with experts shows the extent of the problem ...

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. ...

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. ...

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. ...

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. ...

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. ...

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. ...

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. ...

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. ...

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. ...

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. ...

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. ...

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. ...

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. ...

This May 1-7, turn up the volume. It’s the 66th Annual CMHA Mental Health Week and we’re getting loud for mental health. During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. ...

From funding to front-line services, programs are lacking for youth, advocates say. Youth suicide in Canada is the third highest among industrialized nations. Beth Nowosad started feeling anxious and suffering panic attacks in Grade 8. ...

During Mental Health Week, Canadians take the time to reflect on their mental health. But we do more than just reflect. We get loud about it. This year during the Canadian Mental Health Association's Mental Health Week, Canadians are spe ...

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, a song written for jazz singer Nina Simone, perhaps sums up how a lot of people living with bipolar disorder feel Dr. Barry Rich, for one, thinks the time has come for understanding. Rich, a retired physici ...

As the taboo around talking about mental health crumbles, students are demanding more resources on campus, and many post-secondary education institutions are struggling to keep up University isn’t meant to be easy, but it isn’t supposed ...

However you recognize volunteering in 2017, one thing remains timeless…and that is volunteer efforts create positive impact in communities across Canada Thank you Canadian volunteers, for 150 glorious years! In 2017, volunteering comes i ...

"Funds must not only build affordable housing, they must align with poverty reduction strategies and mental health and recovery initiatives currently underway if we are to truly reduce long-term homelessness" In North American cities lik ...

The vision of World Bipolar Day is to bring awareness to bipolar conditions and to eliminate social stigma. This year's theme is having #bipolar gives me strength to follow my passions World Bipolar Day The vision of World Bipolar ...

Steven Barnes on World Bipolar Day: "Making those connections with other people who have had lived experience with mental illness has been very important for my recovery" World Bipolar Day The vision of WBD is to bring world awareness ...

Amir on World Bipolar Day: "I think finding support from people with similar experiences is the best thing for somebody who is newly diagnosed with bipolar disorder" World Bipolar Day The vision of WBD is to bring world awareness to b ...

Dr. Erin Michalak on World Bipolar Day: "Canada is a world leader in generating good science on bipolar disorder, and in getting these scientific findings into the hands of people who need them" World Bipolar Day The vision of WBD is ...

Natasha Kolida on World Bipolar Day: "You're not getting to know someone with bipolar, you're getting to know someone. Just think about that" World Bipolar Day The vision of WBD is to bring world awareness to bipolar disorders and eli ...

Carolyn Ziegler on World Bipolar Day: "The first time I heard people saying 'I'm living well with bipolar disorder' that changed everything for me" World Bipolar Day The vision of WBD is to bring world awareness to bipolar disorders a ...

Victoria Maxwell on World Bipolar Day: "I feel I can make my mark by righting some of the misunderstandings people have about bipolar disorder, and I do that a lot with humour" World Bipolar Day The vision of WBD is to bring world awa ...

Dr. Greg Murray on World Bipolar Day: "Over the last 10 years there's been lots of changes on lots of fronts when it comes to bipolar disorder, all of them very, very positive" World Bipolar Day The vision of WBD is to bring world awa ...

Dr. Stephen Hinshaw on World Bipolar Day: "My passion is for communication, science, treatment, and making human stories about bipolar disorder readily accessible" World Bipolar Day The vision of WBD is to bring world awareness to bip ...

New research suggests the two conditions may be the different outcomes of one genetic syndrome Some researchers have suggested that the relatively high autism prevalence in this population is the result of misdiagnoses of early signs of ...

Students use storytelling and art to engage peers in discussing stress, anxiety and resilience The girl with the ponytail and hightop sneakers looks like any other teenager as she grabs a book from her locker and trudges down the corrido ...

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community is a group in society with a unique set of end-of-life concerns, but their needs remain largely unmet End-of-life concerns -- including everything from retirement t ...

“Today, Health Canada is in the habit of keeping this information secret when pharmaceutical companies ask them to. That is what has to change.” Health Canada plans to release reams of confidential documents that detail the clinical tria ...

In Canada, a strong social safety net plus growth have been the factors in poverty reduction. Despite this progress, we hear repeated calls for continued poverty reduction Growing up poor does more than deprive a billion children and ...

Providing shelter to homeless women isn’t a solution. It’s only part of the solution. We must support them in permanently escaping the hellish downward spiral of homelessness and reclaiming their rightful place in our community The strug ...

"Our study provides a window into what young people think about the mental health services they receive and what they feel helps and hinders their well-being...feedback will lead to...services that they will find engaging, meaningful and ef ...

Inspired by promising research into ketamine’s therapeutic effects, people are swapping strategies online on how to use the drug to ease their despair. Could ‘Special K’ be a panacea for depression? John woke up one morning feeling a ...

After an addiction to gaming brought on depression, family problems and a wish to end his life, Cam Adair finally broke free Cam Adair is one of a growing number of young people in North America and beyond, particularly boys, who are add ...

"Today we’re updating the tools and resources we offer to people who may be thinking of suicide, as well as the support we offer to their concerned friends and family members: Integrated suicide prevention tools to help people in real time ...

"What we need is an actual plan": Lower Mainland mayors say homelessness has reached a “state of crisis,” with more than 4,000 people in need of housing and more than 70 homeless camps in operation Metro Vancouver’s homelessness task for ...

“There’s a common public misconception that we are unable to make decisions for ourselves. Truth being we are excluded from even participating in policy decisions that determine our fates” National Day of Action on the Overdose Crisis ...

A participant known as Nelson said he had hopes of going into acting, but was disappointed when a counsellor set him up with a theatre company dedicated to “people affected by mental illness” A recently published UBC study reveals some m ...

Concerned citizens march in Nanaimo on February 21, 2017, in solidarity with cities across Canada struggling with effective responses to the growing opioid overdose crisis National Day of Action on the Overdose Crisis Canada is in the ...

Nanaimo-based hip hop artist Matt Dunae (Sirreal) and Jona Kristinsson re-release "Words Like Weapons" ...

Day of Action follows many recent steps taken by drug user communities and harm reduction advocates to share knowledge, increase frontline supports and cope with the grief of losing loved ones as fentanyl helps fuel an overdose crisis Dr ...

The Ontario legislature is becoming a place where MPPs are comfortable with acknowledging they are coping with depression or other forms of mental illness. This is a pretty remarkable thing, and is worth pausing to consider. The example ...

"If you constantly think of it as a prison cell it’s always duhkha—suffering. But if you turn it into a meditation cell, then at least for a moment you will have a glimpse of freedom and joy, because you let go of that negativity." Tea ...

Despite the risk for the onset of burden, some informal caregivers manage challenges quite well and demonstrate a certain degree of resilience. What does resilience look like among those providing care to dying individuals? Friends a ...

Sixteen years after Vancouver formally adopted a ‘four pillars’ approach to drug strategy, the city – and the province – finds itself in the grip of an overdose crisis, reports Andrea Woo More than 900 people died of illicit drug overdos ...

Keeping Premier Christy Clark’s promise to make British Columbia the most progressive province in Canada for people with disabilities by the year 2024 will require steady raises to disability assistance payments followed by ongoing cost of ...

"Carfentanil is an extremely toxic and lethal drug and there is currently no way for people to know whether it is contained in illegal drugs," Dr. Charmaine Enns, Island Health medical health officer said in a release A deadly drug 100 t ...

“Young people who are struggling are not always visible. We wanted to boost our efforts to help them.” Television and radio show host Stéphane Bellavance says he’s lucky his family is doing well, but should something go amiss, he would l ...

The modern strengthening of the human-animal bond has supported the development of a comprehensive veterinary practice that provides care for all life stages, including the end-of-life Doctors of veterinary medicine swear the "Veteri ...

“We learned we don’t need to put up with the dogmatic approach,” said Mr. Knight, a member of the Unitarian church. “It’s unnecessary and unhelpful.” TORONTO -- In 1934, Bill Wilson guzzled four beers on his way to a hospital where he sa ...

Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan says that while we don't know what happens on the 'other side' of death, we can prepare for it 'on this side' by letting go of attachments and grievances, and respond to death by learning to support the bereaved ...

  Sexual abuse is a “dehumanizing and demoralizing” root cause of the youth suicide crisis that has been ravaging remote northern outposts in recent years Some nights, Susan Aglukark still wakes up drenched in sweat. It’s been 42 ...

You may find it difficult and stressful to approach someone you care about who has an eating disorder. You may wonder what to say, or be worried about what will happen as a result Every day, we are surrounded by different messages fr ...

Mary Purdy died Jan. 17 of a fentanyl overdose at home. Her two boys sat beside her lifeless body for hours until they were discovered by an ex-boyfriend, who had come to check on her Mary Purdy baked homemade cupcakes, played the piano ...

Store owner predicts that, without action to change what is happening in downtown Nanaimo, the area will become similar to Vancouver's Downtown Eastside On a sunny Saturday Nanaimo’s downtown is shining. But many business owners say it’s ...

“If someone is reading this story, and they’re in an unhealthy relationship, and they are feeling, ‘Maybe I am going through the same thing,’ I really want them to understand that getting out on your own and being independent is the very fi ...

Eating disorders are much more common in men than were previously thought. While men may describe their situations differently from women, their triggers for eating disorders are pretty much the same Body image, self esteem and disorde ...

Indigenous people, long over-represented among the homeless, were nine times more likely to be homeless than non-indigenous Canadians, the report found. Veterans comprised about five per cent, twice their proportion of the general populatio ...

For three decades, his radio and television reports have brought the country and the world into Canadian homes. But “Curt Petrovich, CBC News” has been silent for two years now, on medical leave while he struggles with debilitating PTSD ...

https://twitter.com/peoplefirstrad/status/824267069906681857

Are you a passionate, eager individual who wants to help others improve body image, reduce stigma of eating disorders, and spread awareness? Then the love our bodies, love ourselves movement is right for you British Columbia's Provin ...

"If they can’t label it and they can’t ask for help, it will come out as a physical symptom. They will say, 'I have a headache. My stomach’s really sore.'" I’ve been working as a nurse practitioner in a Thunder Bay high school for about ...

Amid headlines of overdoses and galloping addiction rates, Carlyn Zwarenstein's memoir is an outspoken and provocative dispatch from the New Age of Opium North Americans are the world’s most compulsive and prolific users of legal o ...

Brock University professor Dan Malleck says that while concern about addictive painkillers is strong, concern about the broader social causes of pain should be even stronger "Prescription painkiller abuse, addiction and death are hot ...

The media coverage of mental illness is improving by leaps and bounds thanks to those individuals who are brave enough to speak out despite any stigma Suicide – it’s a word loaded with emotion, tragedy and questions. Until recent years ...

Some people say mid-winter is the most depressing time of year—when cold and dark days, holiday bills, and already-lapsed new year’s resolutions catch up with us Whether you believe that or not, it’s never a bad time to reflect o ...

Dr. Derek Poteryko offers workshop to Quit Smoking for Good on Wednesday January 18th in Nanaimo NANAIMO — Dr. Derek Poteryko wants to help you kick the need for nicotine in 2017.  Dr. Poteryko is Island Health’s Medical Director of Comm ...

Mindfulness assists people with their end of life process by giving them and their caregivers a tool they can use in order to be fully aware of the present moment and their own physical and mental states The Venerable Yin Kit (pictur ...

Mehdi Naïmi says that good art therapy empowers people, strengthens relationships, brings peace of heart, and joy to life Long before there was "art therapy," artists explained themselves with their inner images as references to real ...

Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health will invite Canadians to nominate people who devote their lives to those experiencing mental illness because they believe the status quo isn’t good enough.  More than seven million Canadi ...

Despite the ubiquity of mental illness and the steady erosion of the social stigma once attached to such struggles, the health-care system has not kept up. By the age of 40, half of all Canadians will have suffered from some form of ment ...

When a person first experiences symptoms of psychosis, the treatment they receive can be critical in their long-term recovery. Psychosis, which is an inability to determine what is real or not, usually emerges in early adulthood. Current ...

A colleague of mine was teaching a group of medical students recently and they asked a patient why he was in hospital with an injured leg. He answered, "Because I have no money." As a family doctor who works largely with people living on ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

“What can I do?” Amid what seems like a rising international tide of anger and bigotry, this question is on many minds. But it’s also just a handful of words, one so small you could tuck it in a coat pocket and forget about until next ye ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

"Mom sat at the computer as I dictated words for her to Google: paranoia, delusions, rambling. The Internet returned schizophrenia, and we both scoffed" #top10 #mostlistenedto #peoplefirstradio #podcasts in #2016 #listenagain 'We ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

"Mondays are a little bit terrifying for us at this point because we come into the office and everybody has a sense of dread. Are we going to come back to the news that we lost somebody over the weekend?" Harm reduction workers in the B. ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

"Emily’s illness isn’t reduced to a quirk or idiosyncrasy, neither does it unduly define her, governing every dimension of the role. Klein adopts the radical position that bipolar disorder is a problem this woman sometimes has under control ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

"Kids who are in the care of the minister shouldn’t age out at 19. They should be supported through this difficult transition period. If they’re not supported, we know what happens all too often. To be cut off completely is not acceptable." ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

Meet one of the pushers behind the ongoing overdose-death crisis — Frank Smith, a 59-year-old aboriginal man injured in a 1989 skiing accident and recently a Downtown Eastside habitué This isn’t another sad First Nations story — it’s a c ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

Psychologists looking at 10 years of data from nearly 20,000 men found that those who value having power over women and endorse playboy behavior and other traditional notions of masculinity are more likely to suffer from psychological probl ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

Margaret Trudeau seen on stage at WE Day on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2016, in Toronto. (Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP) Margaret Trudeau, the former wife of one prime minister and mother of another, has spent the past decade building her own ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

"This talk is about death and dying. Not about dying unexpectedly or by accident, but about dying as an event that in principle is within our control" Questions regarding the end of life -- about dying, suicide, and death -- have bee ...

Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline Project to coincide with the International 16-day campaign of activism against gender violence. Read more about the international campaign here. ...

https://youtu.be/wWDLIEpmJn4?t=7m55s Domestic violence still remains hidden behind closed doors – and it’s time to air our “dirty laundry.” Haven Society and other community organizations have joined together to launch the Clothesline P ...

Canadians are calling for a collaborative, strong and innovative national housing strategy to eliminate homelessness across the country. They want a plan that boosts the country’s affordable housing stock and employs new financial soluti ...

As psychiatric disorders become attributable to specific, testable causes, will psychiatry become obsolete? The lack of objective medical tests in psychiatry is a common criticism of the field. According to some, being a doctor means usi ...

Hardy and Amelia Leighton’s deaths served as a wake-up call that fentanyl was threatening even recreational drug users, but the truth is more complicated, reports Andrea Woo It was intended to be a quiet night in, a chance to get ahead o ...

Nanaimo Brain Injury Society hosted experts in the field of acquired brain injury assessment, diagnosis, symptom management and return to play/academics, at a public seminar The Nanaimo Brain Injury Society held a public seminar on O ...

“People think they’re doing a recreational drug. They’re not what we would consider criminals, they’re high-functioning regular people in many cases, and they’re dying.” OTTAWA — The Trudeau government would be more sensitive to the fent ...

Brain is a hilarious, heartbreaking monologue about consciousness, mental illness and friendship from award-winning novelist and former Canadian SLAM poetry champion, Brendan McLeod The human brain makes 20 million billion calculatio ...

It’s laundry day for someone living in one of Chilliwack’s 15 homeless encampments. Wet clothes steam in the weak November sunlight, which filters through a stand of cottonwood trees growing on the banks of a drainage ditch that campers use ...

"The guy is so smart, his rapid-fire delivery so clean and confident, his wit so casual, copious, and reassuring that he makes the journey feel safe for the audience. He gives himself; he feels less alone and we feel less alone" Author, ...

The 2016 report card on women's rights in British Columbia shows the province continues to lag on promises made in the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) The CEDAW convention CEDAW sta ...

More than 230 Canadians a day are victims of family violence that are reported to police, Canada's chief public health officer says in releasing a new report on a seldom discussed issue Dr. Gregory Taylor's 2016 report on the state of pu ...

An urgently needed study of the diagnosis and medication of ADHD reveals a disease ruthlessly marketed by drug companies, scientists and self-help authors Months before I was diagnosed, I had already fallen into the clutches of what the ...

“We need to continue to bring the community together to talk about the seriousness of the overdose crisis and how better to respond,” says Dr. Paul Hasselback, Island Health’s Medical Health Officer for Central Vancouver Island Nanaimo a ...

The big difference between the current welfare payments and a basic income...would be that basic income would be paid automatically, rather than requiring a whole bunch of paperwork and constant monitoring to prove eligibility André Pica ...

The idea is to study what the effects would be of providing people in poverty with a basic income, as a step towards designing a permanent system The idea of providing a basic minimum income for everyone – no strings attached – is an all ...

“Mental health has been left out of the publicly insured framework not because of evidence but because of historic decisions fueled by misinformation, fear and prejudice and by squabbles over jurisdiction” OTTAWA—The Trudeau government i ...

The solution to the epidemic of suicide (and drug and alcohol abuse, family violence, sexual violence and trauma, which are all interrelated) in First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities has to be broad-based and long-term and, ultimately, ...

Social enterprises, says Marco Pagani, are The Answer. The answer to food insecurity, to unaffordable housing, to youth unemployment. The answer to poverty. Pagani, a former high-tech executive who’s now president and CEO of the Communit ...

One thousand five hundred and sixty days in solitary confinement. To put this in perspective, consider that the United Nations has declared this form of segregation should never surpass 15 days. There is a young First Nations man in Thun ...

Consumption sites, free naloxone, wider help for addicts and more beds are seen as possible answers Victoria, B.C. -- There’s no shortage of ideas to ease B.C.’s fentanyl-overdose crisis: Supervised-consumption sites, more treatment beds ...

New research conducted by the Mental Health Commission of Canada makes a powerful case for the social and economic imperative of responding to the unique needs of immigrant, refugee, ethno-cultural and racialized populations, including raci ...

“They might look blue or grey around their lips, ears and fingernails from the lack of oxygen. People will look dead.” Much of Heather Hobbs’s job as a harm-reduction co-ordinator involves showing people how to inject the opioid inhibito ...

We Matter uses social media and video to speak directly to young aboriginals struggling with desperation, writes Mark Hume Kelvin Redvers’s work to create a forum for speaking out about suicide among aboriginal youth started last summer ...

Family Fun Dayz at McNab's Corn Maze, originally planned for Saturday October 22nd, has been cancelled due to excessive rain and ongoing storms. The event vendors were not able to access the area to setup. Please accept our apologies for an ...

"You can’t break down over everyone who dies because there’s a guy going down like every week," says Drake Smith VICTORIA -- Drake Smith knew he was going to overdose. He was in a bathroom downtown. His friends had told him to only do ha ...

Child psychiatrist Dr. Matthew Burkey on challenges and opportunities, and lessons learned from interventions in low- and middle-income countries that can make a difference Dr. Matthew Burkey, a child, adolescent and adult psychiatri ...

Author Zander Sherman says that "the point of institutionalized education has never been to benefit the student for his or her own sake, based on the understanding that the activity of learning is an intrinsically worthwhile endeavour" ...

Study from Mental Health Commission of Canada warns that costs for crisis care could spike Canada must match its multicultural, open-door immigration policy with tailored mental health services or face inflated costs for crisis care down ...

Millennials – those employees in their mid-20s and 30s – are contributing to a pro-active conversation on workplace health in general – one more oriented toward preventative medicine, positive mental health and well-being Last summer, wh ...

This man has found a wonderful way to help people through their darkest times. It starts with tea. Inside a library in a depressed seaside town in Northern England is a room converted into a cafe designed to look like a grandmother’s hom ...

Shelters are full, more women are homeless and Metro Vancouver’s homeless population is on track for continued growth, according to a new report In “No Vacancy: Affordability & Homelessness in Vancouver,” researchers from Union Gospe ...

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First annual Positivity Run on Nanaimo's Vancouver Island University campus created to celebrate all bodies--no matter the color, size, shape, or ability--as beautiful Students at Vancouver Island University were invited to join in a ...

Stress has become the soul-sucking virus of the modern age. So a recent large-scale Ontario study should come as no surprise: Teenagers are also becoming infected in growing numbers In August, the Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and M ...

Lack of shelters and the emergence of fentanyl is “changing the game” in terms of homelessness, leading to more tent cities across the province, B.C.’s housing minister says Rich Coleman said makeshift camps have spread beyond the big ci ...

"Months on a trapline in the wilds of James Bay promised deliverance from the self-doubts that nagged me, even if I did worry about not having a clue what I was going to be doing out there," writes Duncan McCue in his new memoir Th ...

Malady of the mind remains mostly misunderstood: "Oftentimes people think that people with schizophrenia are violent, and that’s a gross misperception, largely due to media portrayal" You wouldn’t know it from looking at Eric Fraser, Kat ...

"I’ve learned how to manage my depression with cognitive behavioural therapy and support from my family. I want to be able to direct my own treatment and recovery" People who are involuntarily detained under BC’s Mental Health Act – ...

People who are involuntarily detained under BC’s Mental Health Act – or released from hospital on leave – currently have no right to give or refuse consent to any psychiatric treatment Vancouver, BC – Two individuals and the Council ...

Indigenous physicist has overcome trauma, poverty, racism and mental illness in his journey to understand the universe. Perimeter officials say he has a unique intelligence and they look forward to working with him. Percy Paul hacks ...

Just as physical first aid is administered to an injured person before medical treatment can be obtained, mental health first aid is given until appropriate treatment is found or until the crisis is resolved Mental Health First Aid B ...

Treatment programs have been effective in reducing and ceasing use. However, there are a range of possible barriers that have prevented these programs being widely adopted by methamphetamine users Methamphetamine use is associate ...

“It could be that there is increased occurrence of mental illness, but it could also be that campuses are creating environments where students feel it’s safe to come forward” A fifth of Canadian postsecondary students are depressed and a ...

“Let’s take a preventative approach. Let’s take that long-term developmental approach. Let’s safeguard our children so they don’t have to grow up in such despair that they take their own lives.” A recent spate of suicides across Canada u ...

https://twitter.com/SchizophreniaCa/status/773166386340253696

“For people in B.C. on social assistance, 82 per cent are food insecure. It’s a sentence” One in five Vancouver Island families struggles to pay for healthy food, a new study says. A University of Toronto study looking at food security i ...

Review of 10 years of shelter data nationwide show no matter where you go in Canada, Indigenous People are over-represented in homeless shelters OTTAWA — Fewer beds remain empty each night in Canada's emergency homeless shelters as users ...

The 10th annual Soles Remembering Souls Walk will be held in Nanaimo on Saturday, September 10, 2016, with music, personal stories of hope, healing and support for survivors of suicide loss Suicide is one of the leading causes of death ...

'Life of Bria' creator and illustrator Sabrina Symington has published five graphic novels and posts her work online, tackling everyday life, and topics like 'coming out' and 'trans sports' Sabrina Symington is a transgender graphi ...

Food or Bus Pass? Clawback Creates Hard Choices for British Columbians with Disabilities When Beth Lowther gives up her transit pass on Sept. 1, she fears a life of social isolation. But she says she has no choice. Lowther is among 35,00 ...

A new study found Chinese, South Asians suffer more severe symptoms than other groups by putting off getting treatment for mental illness Chinese and South Asian patients experience more severe mental health problems by the time they see ...

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Caroline White at the office of the Hearing Voices Network in Holyoke, Mass. The program relies on members supporting one another, does not use the words “patient” or “treatment” HOLYOKE, Mass. — Some of the voices inside Caroline White’ ...

Dozens of interviews and meetings with groups at the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users facility uncovered unique phenomena within the city’s notorious open-drug market Dr. Anke Stallwitz, a professor of social and community psychology ...

Pacific Coast Stage Company presents the 6th annual Nanaimo Fringe Festival in the heart of downtown Nanaimo from August 11 – 21, 2016 The annual Nanaimo Fringe Festival kicks off this year in downtown Nanaimo on August 11th, 2016. T ...

'Human Library' is a global phenomenon promoting compassion, dialogue, and understanding. The Gabriola Theatre Festival is presenting its first-ever human library this month The Gabriola Theatre Festival The 8th annual Gabriola Th ...

Takes A Dollar is an annual fundraiser founded on the idea that if every person in Nanaimo gave just one dollar, almost $100,000 could be raised for local charities. These funds could have a tremendous impact in the local community. The ...

A report to the Sunshine Coast Regional District cites a 2007 survey that identified 240 homeless people, most of them with substance-abuse and mental health problems At the end of each sultry summer evening on the Sunshine Coast, cars a ...

Vancouver Island Mental Health Society has seen significant change over the past two years, and the organization expects new programming will be added in the near future While acknowledging that significant changes over the last two ...

Child psychiatrist Dr. Matthew Burkey on challenges and opportunities, and lessons learned from interventions in low- and middle-income countries that can make a difference Dr. Matthew Burkey, a child, adolescent and adult psychiatri ...

"This humiliating procedure is repeated monthly, not just for Brown but for all the other people with disabilities, for whom government’s default position seems to be that they must be scammers" Comment by Stephen Hume -- A. J. Brown, th ...

A Vancouver-based Inner City Youth program, along with its Youth Advisory Committee, provides ways for young people to inform their own mental health care, in a "not about us, without us" approach The Inner City Youth (ICY) program ...

Representatives of United Way Central and Northern Vancouver Island attended the recent Vancouver Island Mental Health Society annual meeting to present a cheque for $9,500 ...

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Koori Men’s Health Day is a community based, collaborative, culturally accepted service model for early identification of mental and physical illness among Koori men in rural Australia Health conditions such as depression, anxiety an ...

Valerie Ward's research with Indigenous youth living in northern B.C. explores whether existing online mental health resources are age and culturally appropriate Valerie Ward was a presenter at the 17th Canadian Collaborative Mental ...

Dr. Rod McCormick says current Aboriginal health in Canada is a direct result of previous Canadian government policies -- and that we must help communities reclaim their own healing resources Dr. Rod McCormick was a keynote speaker a ...

A lifetime spent immersed in the art, culture and everyday lives of Canada's Inuit and east coast maritime communities has helped make John Houston into a Canadian renaissance man Born in 1954, John Houston spent his first eight year ...

The social and self-stigma around mental illness also fuels men’s shame, stoicism and resistance to seek peer or professional help When Jessica’s brother went missing in 2013, she was sure he had been abducted. His car was found aban ...

Researchers trying to understand what triggers psychotic episodes in some users say it’s a myth marijuana is risk-free At first, the voices he heard in his head were pleasant. But then, they turned malevolent. Jean Thibodeau, a 19-year-o ...

The causes of homelessness are many, but at the root of it is poverty, and a lack of affordable and supportive housing That sounds obvious but consider for a moment that social assistance rates in this province haven’t gone up since 2007 ...

Last year, 39 first responders across Canada took their own lives -- and one-third of those deaths by suicide occurred in British Columbia, the highest among all provinces First responders deal with traumatic events repeatedly, and ...

Self-care for first response personnel, Monday June 13...What is the reality of PTSD, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue and burnout -- and what can you do about it?  The purpose of this event is to raise awareness for first response p ...

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Amy Jane Brown is totally deaf; she has cerebral palsy and has metal rods in her spine because of surgery to correct a severe lateral curvature. Yet she graduated from university with a degree in English lit and music and is now an accompli ...

"Mom sat at the computer as I dictated words for her to Google: paranoia, delusions, rambling. The Internet returned schizophrenia, and we both scoffed" 'We still didn't know what he had' Joshua Sherman It was the fall of 2011. I ...

"Anxiety is a major psychological problem to which there is no easy solution." "What works for one person may not work for another, may not work for you or me." About anxiety disorders Anxiety disorders seem to be a result of a co ...

Simple retinal scans could detect neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease before symptoms surface In a small darkened room, a few minutes’ walk from the colourful sights of Toronto’s Kensington Market, my eyes ...

Review finds that a high proportion of local RCMP responses are made to non-criminal complaints for which the response is costly and not optimally effective The City of Nanaimo has released the final report of its core services review, ...

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Island Roots Market Co-operative has partnered with Bowen Road Farmers Market and there are plans for a single indoor year-round market open 5 or 6 days each week in Nanaimo Nanaimo's only indoor winter Farmers Market, Island Roots M ...

The founder of Calgary Queer Church, with a vision of creating inclusive safe space for the LGBTQ faith community, says "I didn’t walk away from my faith, I walked away from the church” Interfaith conference and LGBTQ inclusion Last ...

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19-year-old says he was asked by a residence manager to sign agreement stipulating he not talk to other residence students about personal issues, "namely the student's self-destructive thoughts" HALIFAX -- A Nova Scotia student who faced ...

“Different approaches and philosophies of care are necessary because patient needs vary across the province. There should be fair and equitable access for everyone.” VICTORIA - Auditor General of British Columbia Carol Bellringer issued ...

People who have mental illness challenge society’s typical narrative about what is “natural” or healthy, poet Shira Erlichman says At the bottom of the sea, just off the coast of Maryland, New York City subway cars have become a new habi ...

After two years of planning, a Nanaimo-based nonprofit society, managed by persons who have had or currently have mental health or addictions issues, held its public launch About Friends Empowerment The Friends Empowerment Society is ...

Safe, secure and affordable housing is crucial to maintaining and improving health and well-being When you’re feeling unwell, whether from a minor cold or a devastating terminal illness, the feeling of home, the desire for a safe and com ...

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Vancouver Island Mental Health Society (VIMHS) is passionate about mental health. We provide supportive housing and psychosocial rehabilitation for adults who are actively experiencing serious mental illness right here at home. VIMHS is ...

We all have mental health, just as we all have physical health. Mental health is more than the absence of mental illness. It’s a state of well-being.  Read more about Mental Health Week here... ...

Wasted, a book and documentary, is a harrowing, wry, and riveting account of a therapist's struggle with alcohol and his quest to find a better way of treating addiction WASTED -- the book Psychotherapist Mike Pond built a life he ...

April 28, 2016--On one typical day late last year, 416 women and children across Canada sought shelter to escape violence. Of that total, however, shelters were forced to turn away 73 per cent of those in need due to a lack of resources ...

Naomi Wakan, a former psychotherapist turned author, artist and poet, has been laying the groundwork for a new generation of poets during her tenure as Nanaimo's first poet laureate On October 21, 2013, Nanaimo's city council approv ...

"Sit-com sonnets, soundscapes of noise, videogame goombas, an Old-Testament God, teenage longing within the power chords of heavy metal, and the complicated loss of a father to schizophrenia" Ignite A finalist for the Alfred G. Bail ...

As drug overdose deaths continue to climb in British Columbia, new figures on the use of naloxone, which can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose within minutes, show there has also been a significant increase in drug users being p ...

The Canadian Mental Health Association is asking Canadians to ‘get loud’ and encouraging them to talk more openly and honestly about mental health. Mental Health Week is May 2-6. Events celebrating mental health are using the social med ...

Treating addicts as if they are criminals doesn’t help them, nor does it stem public appetite for illicit substances, health experts say Top health officials in British Columbia are calling for a significant change in drug policy that wo ...

In the wake of Attawapiskat’s youth suicide crisis, prime minister said his government would work with the provinces and territories to build the ranks of counsellors, psychiatrists and psychologists OTTAWA—Canada has yet to feel the ful ...

"We can't just look at look at people who are homeless and say that is not my problem...we have a lot of homelessness here in Nanaimo and a lot of people that are hungry." Cheryl Prince and Liz Kawahara are the organizers of an initi ...

In a ground-breaking judgment, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that mandatory minimum sentencing for certain drug offences violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms Viewing sentencing through the lens of equality Fairness and ...

For 10 years Adrian Lawford kept a secret from everyone at work. The TD Bank employee has battled anxiety and depression for most of his life, but never told a soul at the office until one day when he sat his manager down to come out “f ...

The community activist and internationally recognized youth leader says "we can take this crappy word oppression...throw it away...and we can replace it with this idea of opportunity" Michael Redhead Champagne has spent the last 19 y ...

The People’s Strength project was funded through Health Canada’s now-defunct Health Services Integration Fund, which was aimed at improving health-care delivery to First Nation and Inuit peoples Three years before Attawapiskat First Nati ...

Natan Obed is the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national voice of Canada’s 60,000 Inuit Contrary to popular belief, the high rates of suicide faced by Inuit are not an unexplainable phenomenon that warrants a way of thinking ...

Matt Dunae credits his friends – and particularly his now-wife – for sticking with him through the darkest times no matter how hard he tried to alienate them It’s not hard to compare suicide to a bomb. Like a bomb, suicide happens wi ...

What makes a man, “a man?” Strength? Independence? Invulnerability? That question itself might be outdated and irrelevant, but its implications still have an affect on some men today. Only 4 in 10 men with daily feelings of anxiety o ...

https://twitter.com/peoplefirstrad/status/710214995015913473 RELATED | Overdose deaths surge in Nanaimo (Nanaimo News Bulletin, March 17, 2016)

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An overdue reform called inclusionary zoning stands to transform affordable housing by giving cities power to force developers to build low-income units It’s being called a “transformational” change, and for once that’s no exaggerati ...

Nanaimo’s mild weather makes it easier for people to sleep outside, and the local jail adds to the homeless population because inmates have “nowhere to go when they finish their sentence.” The hope is that the national data can help ...

Jeremy Hunka, a spokesman for Union Gospel Mission, says their shelter has seen an influx of people from Alberta and more people who have been squeezed out of housing in Vancouver’s increasingly tight market After doing a two-hour st ...

The top small businesses in BC were announced February 25, 2016 as the winners of the 13th Annual Small Business BC Awards, hosted by Small Business BC at the Pan Pacific Hotel Vancouver As you may have heard, COCO Café received the ...

“People on welfare tend to be seen as undeserving of more expensive options and wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned cash” People on social assistance are judged as frivolous and immoral for making ethical purchases such as organic food, w ...

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Worldwide, women continue to contribute to social, economic, cultural and political achievement. And we have much to celebrate today. But progress towards gender parity has slowed in many places.  Read more about International Women's Day h ...

Why can’t we just make people go to addiction treatment? This is a question some may be asking in light of recent overdose deaths and other drug-related problems Why can’t we just make people go to addiction treatment? This is a ...

A team of researchers from France and Canada will explore the use of social media data to help detect and monitor individuals potentially at risk of mental health issues A team of researchers from France and Canada led by Diana I ...

Award-winning poet Kim Goldberg never thought she would live to see a cure for Hepatitis C. When the cure arrived and Goldberg reaped the victory, it gave her the poem of a lifetime That poem has now become her seventh book: Unde ...

The Government of Canada, in partnership with 30 communities across Canada, is leading the first broadly coordinated Point-in-Time (PiT) Count of homelessness This year, the Government of Canada, in partnership with 30 communit ...

Wide range of on-site low-barrier and integrated wellness services to include mental health and substance use services as well as education about nutrition, sexual health and community programs Youth who attend John Barsby Community ...

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Nanaimo now has a better understanding of the homeless situation within its borders Earlier this month, the City of Nanaimo participated in the inaugural Cross-Canada Coordinated Point-in-Time Homeless Count, conducted during a 24-ho ...

  Dr. David Goldbloom, senior medical adviser at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, is among the nearly 4,800 licensed psychiatrists in Canada In a new book written with a fellow psychiatrist, Dr. Pier Bryden, ...

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There are more bad guys than good ones in the tragic story of Fran Flann who was discharged from hospital and landed in a homeless shelter. The fact that the 82-year-old ended up in such dire straits is both a systemic and a societal ...

Homelessness among seniors, particularly women, a little-known and largely invisible issue in Metro Vancouver In Surrey, police came across a woman in her mid-80s living in a car and taking care of her adult son, who is mentally ill ...

"With mental health problems still being such a taboo, many adults are often too afraid to ask for help for the children in their care" It is such a privilege to have this opportunity to be Guest Editor of the Huffington Post today, ...

Patrick Aleck says "I'm not supposed to be here right now," referring to cerebral palsy and life challenges, "but I am" -- and he's making a difference in the community Patrick Aleck's Vancouver Island University "about student ...

Coco Cafe has around 33 full and part-time employees, with roughly 50 per cent having some form of a developmental disability. It's "a place where everyone is welcome" COCO Cafe is owned by Cedar Opportunities Co-operative and ...

A landmark report obtained exclusively by the Toronto Star reveals the devastating extent of child and family homelessness in Canada Child and family homelessness is a hidden but growing crisis in Canada that requires a multi-pronged ...

Discrimination, harassment and assault of LGBT youths is often very severe, ongoing and leads to lasting mental health problems such as major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, new study says CHICAGO, Ill. --- Since ...

“We want to know if the number of homeless individuals has gotten larger than it used to be. Has it gotten smaller or has it stayed the same and what does that mean?” Image by Nicholas Pescod, Nanaimo News Bulletin The extent of the ...

Former BC Lions football player JR LaRose is a leader in the “Be More Than a Bystander” initiative aimed at increasing awareness and understanding about the impact of men’s violence against women About JR LaRose JR LaRose is a ...

Times Colonist photographer Bruce Stotesbury visited the tent city near the Victoria courthouse and spoke with some of the campers about why they were there. Here is what he found.  See this at the Times Colonist... ...

Coco Cafe has around 33 full and part-time employees, with roughly 50 per cent having some form of a developmental disability Snuggled in the heart of Cedar lies a little cafe that's making a big impact. It is a place where everyone ...

An elderly woman’s simple act of compassion for a distressed man on the Vancouver SkyTrain has touched thousands of people Ehab Taha wrote about what he witnessed on his Facebook page. Taha said he was on the SkyTrain when a large man st ...

Like many Canadians, Philippe Hudon has been playing hockey since the moment he learned to walk. Unlike most children, however, Hudon was very neat and organized “His room was always impeccable. I was never complaining that actually ...

Patrick Aleck, from Stz’uminus First Nation, shared a powerful call to action at the conclusion of former B.C. Lions' JR LaRose's "Be More Than a Bystander" event February 1st in Nanaimo 674_patrick aleck_be more than a bystand ...

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Co-founder says the stigma surrounding mental illness prevents people from talking about it, and he hopes Wear Your Label clothing can help start a dialogue about the topic Two young Canadian entrepreneurs are attempting to take ment ...

The love our bodies, love ourselves! movement, brought to you by the Provincial Eating Disorders Awareness campaign, is launched in February with activities and events taking place throughout the year Eating disorders are a group ...

Study marks watershed moment, with the potential for early detection and new treatments that were unthinkable just a year ago For the first time, scientists have pinned down a molecular process in the brain that helps to trigger schi ...

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"None of them chose to be addicted or mentally ill, any more than someone chooses to develop cancer or rheumatoid arthritis" A recent Simon Fraser University study showed that expensive services in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside do not re ...

Several recent studies reveal what you say—and how you say it—provide clues about disease Future doctors may ask us to say more than “Ahhh.” Several groups of neuroscientists, psychiatrists and computer scientists are now investigati ...

Dean Purdy, of the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union, says about one-third of the inmates in pre-trial custody have mental health problems METRO VANCOUVER -- Earlier this month, accused killer Matthew Kalin Brenner threw hi ...

No dollar figure was set for more federal health funding, but ministers agreed 'new resources' are needed Health Minister Jane Philpott has wrapped up two days of meetings with provincial and territorial counterparts in Vancouver, wi ...

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Some people say mid-winter is the most depressing time of year—when cold and dark days, holiday bills, and already-lapsed new year’s resolutions catch up with us Whether you believe that or not, it’s never a bad time to reflect o ...

“Be More Than a Bystander” is an initiative between the Ending Violence Association of BC and the BC Lions aimed at increasing awareness and understanding about the impact of men’s violence against women About JR LaRose JR LaR ...

Nanaimo Regional General Hospital’s emergency department is the third emergency department in the province to offer Take Home Naloxone as a life-saving antidote for clients at risk of opioid overdose The take home Naloxone kits hav ...

“When my friend told me that he was suffering from depression, it was very hard for him, but it was also hard for me because I didn’t have the resources and the know-how to help him get the help he needed” You wouldn’t think that hockey ...

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Colleges and universities now see nurturing learners’ mental health as a critical part of their job Seneca College offers noise-blocking headphones — like the ones construction workers wear — to students with test anxiety while they ...

On Feb. 1, thanks to Alex Abramovich’s research and leadership, Canada’s first transitional housing for LGBTQ youth is opening its doors at the YMCA’s Sprott House in Toronto The postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Addiction and Me ...

University won’t require diagnosis before accommodating disabilities, after two-year fight involving the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Student says her peers ‘across Canada’ should not have to disclose their diagnoses. Navi Dhanot ...

CBC airs in-depth documentary about the search for effective treatments After such a devastating trip to rock bottom, the thought of drinking again was beyond my comprehension. Mike Pond, “five and-a-half-years sober,” became an inna ...

A panel of individuals and family members with lived experience of mental illness and/or addiction share their experiences with collaborative mental health care. The 16th annual Canadian Collaborative Mental Health Care Conferenc ...

Why, despite irrefutable evidence of their biochemical cause, are mental illnesses so frequently misunderstood? "And why can’t you work full-time? You don’t look disabled to me. Aren’t people like you scamming welfare and disability?" If ...

Jan. 7, 2016 -- Nanaimo RCMP and Island Health are collaborating following reports of an increase in non-fatal overdoses in Nanaimo. The Greater Victoria area had seen a significant increase in overdoses and cases under coroner investigatio ...

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The revolving door of the DTES experience: Despite enormous investment of public monies, there was “no evidence of improvement” It is not news that treatment of the addicted and mentally ill in the Downtown Eastside is expensive. In a se ...

“We had a federal election where housing was actually something talked about and we have a new government committing to take a new leadership role on housing”  There are few struggles more Sisyphean than the push to end homelessness. But ...

Matthew Krastel, a self-described "autism teacher", speaks about his autistic life and shares advice with others about creating a health plan and succeeding in the school system Matthew Krastel has been providing comments, support ...

Dr. Trevor Hancock takes a look at the determinants of health in the context of Canadian life in 2016, focusing on sustainability, equity and governance for health Dr. Trevor Hancock is a public health physician and a professor at ...

Join us for an on-air get-together with some of our People First Radio guests from over the past year, catch up with them, and listen to their music requests Andrea Paquette aka Bipolar Babe is the executive director of the Bipolar S ...

Nanaimo Regional General Hospital’s emergency department is the third emergency department in the province to offer Take Home Naloxone as a life-saving antidote for clients at risk of opioid overdose. December 10, 2015 -- The kits ar ...

Student-led organizations are bringing mental illness into the light to lower the suicide rates of young people Kelly Davis arrived at college carrying heavy baggage—bipolar disorder and an eating disorder. Dragged down by severe d ...

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"Tis the season that provokes difficult emotions. This can be the maddest, saddest, most stressful time of the year," says family physician Dr. Davidicus Wong. The holiday season can be a particularly stressful time of year. Financ ...

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Support groups are are encouraging members to learn strategies to cope with voices in their head. From CBC's The National. ...

Gender violence is also a men's issue involving men of all ages and socioeconomic, racial and ethnic backgrounds. Men can be empowered bystanders who confront abusive peers. #16DaysCampaign “Orange the world: End violence against wome ...

GivingTuesday is a global day of giving. After the sales of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, GivingTuesday is a time to celebrate and encourage activities that support charities and non profits. Whether it’s making a donation, volunteering t ...

On July 16, 2012, Lindsey Longe died alone in a squalid Vancouver room littered with the evidence of his battles with addiction, poor health and hoarding. He was 30. Days before, he had checked out of a hospital and returned to his tiny ...

As too many people know only too well, mental health is a world of unmet needs and untold suffering. Society’s ability to identify and treat emotional ailments and addiction is painfully inadequate. Families, left to themselves, struggle ...

Nanaimo access activist Terry Wiens has grown up with disability, lived through his adult years with that disability, and is now aging into senior years. Will his needs be met? "I am one of those who retire early due to advanced decr ...

Coalition calls for B.C. to adopt comprehensive poverty reduction plan, legislated targets and timelines and a cabinet minister with authority and responsibility to ensure targets are achieved on time The 2015 BC Child Poverty Report ...

Arian Foster was in a bad place, drinking heavily to self-medicate and deal with the problems in his life. The Houston Texans running back knew he needed help but was reluctant to seek it because of the stigma surrounding mental-health i ...

Haven Society, with key community partners, is creating awareness about gender violence with a goal to moving the community to take action on violence against women Violence silences!  Nanaimo Speaks Out! Being in a relationship d ...

The need for food banks spiked drastically in 2009 and has hovered at record levels ever since. Food Banks Canada says that's unacceptable Over 100,000 British Columbians were assisted by food banks last March 2015, an increase of ...

Food bank use has increased for the second consecutive year, and continues to hover at record levels, according to a national study released November 17, 2015 by Food Banks Canada. The HungerCount 2015 report shows that 852,137 people – ...

Vancouver Island Mental Health Society's weekly radio program is an educational partnership with Nanaimo's CHLY 101.7 FM community and campus radio station On November 22, 2007, Kevin Midbo and Jan Coleman sat in the CHLY studio in ...

Zac McHugh, founder of Change of Pace, brings his personal recovery experience to a fitness gym in Squamish, aiming to provide support and mentorship Zac McHugh, a frontline support worker at Squamish Helping Hands Society -- and an ...

Every 40 seconds someone in the world dies by suicide. Every 41 seconds someone is left to make sense of it. Vancouver Island Crisis Society offers a workshop November 25, 2015 It’s astounding how many people’s lives have been touch ...

While the situation for women in BC has seen minor improvements this year, unfortunately for many women, BC continues to fail to deliver on its responsibilities, West Coast LEAF says On November 2, 2015, West Coast LEAF released its ...

Derek Book spent the first 20 years of his life in substantial crisis, but went on to become university-educated, and has been working in the field of social work for over 12 years Derek Book is a consultant living in Victoria, Brit ...

“I know a lot of people who have anxiety and it is hard for them to keep appointments and stuff. There is a lot of mental health problems on the street and that is something that needs to be addressed.”  Read this story at the Vancouver Sun ...

B.C. families who have children with special needs do not have access to information and advocacy to help connect them to vital community support systems Tragic deaths of Angie and Robert Robinson highlight needs Inclusion BC (former ...

Talk Today is designed for BCHL players and their supporters to learn about mental health and increase their skills in order to help support players who may be struggling or at risk of suicide On October 6, 2015, the Canadian Mental ...

Attempts to raise awareness are vitally important, as people with mental illness still suffer numerous social inequities. This is especially so for people with the most severe mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia.  Read the article at Mo ...

OTTAWA, ONTARIO (October 28, 2015)—The Royal has named Dr. Jean Martin Beaulieu the inaugural recipient of The Royal-Mach-Gaensslen Prize for Mental Health Research which supports Canadian early-career researchers in mental health and e ...

The Women's Centre in Nanaimo designs its core work around strengthening women and families to create healthier communities in the mid-Island region. The Nanaimo Women's Resources Society, known as the Nanaimo Women's Centre, offers ...

What would make a difference to parenting and family wellness when mental illness and/or addiction is present? Health organizations in Richmond asked -- and found out. In 2008, families in Richmond, B.C. with either parents with a m ...

Police need to rethink training and procedures to make them more effective, Vancouver Sun editorial says Last week’s report in The Vancouver Sun that the number of persons killed in police shootings in British Columbia has now reached se ...

The project is called Le temps d’une soupe, and it aims to bring Montrealers into greater sympathy with those who sleep on the street or in shelters. The central part of the work is a platform where pairs of strangers are seated in matc ...

The Nanaimo Women's Centre has been using a creative community model -- building pathways of social inclusion and engagement for families marginalized by trauma, poor mental health, or addictions. The Nanaimo Women's Centre mar ...

"Five years ago, my brother had a drug-induced psychotic break. He went from being a happy and healthy 27-year-old...to someone who couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t." Zander Sherman (picture above, left) is a young freelan ...

We want to share our stigma-busting, awareness-enhancing messages about mental health issues in audio (radio, podcasts, online streaming), video (online video segments, local community TV broadcasts), and social media (tweets, links, im ...

Aboriginal Elders-in-Residence at Vancouver Island University (VIU) have been recognized for the knowledge they share and the important role they play at the institution, with the signing of a new agreement that accords them a special f ...

Community media--including community radio--is about volunteerism, social engagement, independent music, learning by doing, community capacity building, citizen journalism and more Community radio volunteers are the cultural pion ...

The Calgary Police Service says its mental health program is making a difference in reducing stigma and building resiliency within the force, and has now attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies from around the world. Read th ...

Supportive housing is not a particularly well-known concept in Canada Samantha Bowens is a 37-year-old single mother. She moved to Toronto from the island of St. Vincent when she was 17, and other than a sojourn to Saskatoon with her hus ...

The caregivers toolkit provides resources and guidance to help people to plan and execute education and advocacy efforts with decision makers who are in a position to enact change The Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) rel ...

Lionel Sanders is coated in sweat. It’s a hot morning in early August, and he has set up his bike in the backyard of his modest bungalow in Windsor, Ont. He’s been riding the bicycle – a lime-green carbon road bike connected to a statio ...

Michael Redhead Champagne in Winnipeg Read the story at Time.com... ...

How he got back inside, in his own words I come from a small town in Newfoundland. I was there until my mid-30s, when I moved to B.C., and then ended up in Toronto in the late '90s. On the street. So when did it go wrong? I don't know if i ...

The Vancouver meeting, titled Community Crisis Response and the Crisis Pathway, was one of many being held in the city this week as part of the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership and International Initiative for Disabilit ...

'Dear parent, your child has had a psychotic break' by Marcia Morris I sit in my small office at the university counseling center, sighing as I pick up the phone to make the call that I always dread. I have worked as a psychiatrist w ...

"Most Internet companies don't treat users as customers, they treat them as the product," Michael Reid says, and Red Scotch Software aims to change that with Kube. It's called Kube, and its developers describe it as the world's perfe ...

#AccessActivist Terry Wiens, a polio survivor who has maintained independence throughout his life, says Nanaimo's urban planning needs a lot of work When was the last time you tried to wheel yourself down to Tim Hortons for a ...

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Canada's First Nations Mental Wellness Continuum Framework presents a shared vision for the future of First Nations mental wellness programs and services and practical steps towards achieving that vision The Assembly of First Nations ...

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"A real federal health policy would begin by acknowledging that the health and well-being of the population is a central concern of government" Dr. Trevor Hancock is a public health physician and health promotion consultant and is ...

The Vancouver Island Mental Health Society and Colliers International Mid-Island Office are pleased to announce the 5th Annual Charity Golf Tournament. Funds raised at the tournament will be presented to the Vancouver Island Mental Health S ...

The demand on Vancouver Island for locally-grown food continues to rise -- but the challenge now is getting that food to the people who want it A new web-based farmers market has launched in Waterloo and Guelph (Ontario), hoping to c ...

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Si’em’ nu Ts’ lhhwulmuhw (My Honoured Fellow Native People) honoured as "a show for the communities and very important for connecting and continuing traditions in villages" (Image by Kenny Brault) The CHLY radio program Si’em’ nu T ...

Jean-Paul Bedard will run a Triple Toronto Marathon to "show the resilience of sexual assault survivors." He wants to raise awareness about sexual abuse -- and recovery. Jean-Paul Bedard will be running the Toronto Waterfront Maratho ...

Marni Panas, a transgender woman from Edmonton, has discovered that by being authentic and true to herself, she has found the strength to move forward in life Marni Panas transitioned to a woman and legally adopted a female name in t ...

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https://twitter.com/peoplefirstrad/status/606579843409379329 635_bipolar youth action_andrea paquette_may_28_2015_40 Left-click to listen; right-click to save. ...

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Seniors in every corner of the province of British Columbia are frustrated and concerned about the availability, appropriateness and affordability of housing British Columbia's seniors advocate Isobel Mackenzie released a report on M ...

Harm reduction programs, including safer consumption sites (SCS) like Vancouver's Insite program, are proven to save lives. A Victoria-based coalition is working to build community support for a SCS in their city. In the last 20 year ...

Mental illness affects one in five Canadians and costs us nearly $50-billion a year. So why aren’t we treating it like any other health-care crisis? It’s 4:30 on a Friday afternoon at her Sherbrooke, Que., clinic and Marie Hayes takes a ...

A report called Looking for Balance has provided a snapshot of the current state of antipsychotic medication use in Ontario long-term care homes and reveals there is wide variation across homes in the percentage of residents being prescribe ...

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Over 20% of homeless youth in Canada identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer or Two-Spirit (LGBTQ2S). Egale is organizing an OUT at Night "spend a night outdoors" fundraiser on May 30th to help get kids shelter. In recent ye ...

A new national study shows that Canada’s transgender youth face significant challenges, but are helped by strong family, school and community connections The study was funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research and complete ...

Every place, as with every person, has its own story to tell. For “A place is a story that happens many times,” as the Oregon writer Kim Stafford reminds us. David McCloskey is a long-time bioregionalist and the founder of the ...

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Canada's national Mental Health Week (May 4-10, 2015) focuses this year on men's mental health -- and the correlation between physical and mental illnesses. One in five Canadians will experience a mental health problem each year, o ...

The City of Victoria's poet laureate Yvonne Blomer will lead an event on May 7, 2015, sponsored by Island Health, marking the first annual Mental Health and Substance Use Awareness Day Island Health’s Mental Health and Substance Use ...

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Come join us to see this Oscar qualifying and award winning documentary on Friday, May 29, 2015 @ 7:00 p.m. in Vancouver Island University Theatre (Building 310)! Free parking in lots G & H. This is the untold story of 'bad-b ...

In any given year, one in five people in Canada will experience a mental health or substance use challenge. Many of these people say that the stigma they encounter is worse than the problem itself. Island Health’s Mental Health and S ...

Mark (above, left) did a personal best of 3:07:13, and you can still contribute to his fundraising on behalf of VanIsle Mental Health Society! Tens of thousands of runners, including some of the world's best, crowded into Boston on a ...

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Lee Herrin, executive director of the Fernwood NRG neighbourhood social enterprise in Victoria, was in Nanaimo recently to speak with representatives from local nonprofit organizations On March 29, 2015, representatives from some o ...

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Stephen Jenkinson's new book is not a seven step coping strategy and not an out-clause for trauma or sorrow -- it's a manifesto for sanity and soul Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul does not offer seven steps for coping with ...

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The definitive guide to bullying prevention and intervention, by best-selling author Barbara Coloroso, provides real solutions for a problem that affects young people all over the world. Barbara Coloroso is a bestselling author and a ...

Vancouver Island University professor Mark Blackell hasn't been running long, but he has qualified for the most prestigious race in the world - the Boston Marathon.  Read the rest of this story at Nanaimo Daily News... ...

Rallies were held in Nanaimo and in other cities across British Columbia on Sunday April 12th to protest against plans by the B.C. government to further cut public education funding. Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May and oth ...

Courage to Come Back award for Andrea Paquette Andrea Paquette’s untreated bipolar disorder had her imagining herself as Canada’s prime minister before plunging her to the depths of being unable to even take a shower and then swallowing ...

April 8, 2015 - Ottawa - Health Canada It is with pleasure that I announce the Honourable Michael H. Wilson as the new Chair of the Mental Health Commission of Canada's Board of Directors. His appointment to this important role is a test ...

The Cascadia Poetry Festival is an international event which seeks to bioregionally animate and culturally construct Cascadia by gathering writers, artists, scientists and activists to collaborate, discover and foster deeper connection be ...

Barbara Coloroso is an international bestselling author and for the past 38 years an internationally recognized speaker and consultant on parenting, teaching, school discipline, positive school climate, bullying, grieving, nonviolent confl ...

Jimmy Lapointe achieved a big win  at the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation's Pan Jiu-Jitsu Championship in March 2015. His efforts were accompanied by fundraising for Nanaimo's Men's Centre -- and the programs Jimmy says have ...

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VANCOUVER – CREST.BD, the Collaborative RESearch Team to study psychosocial issues in Bipolar Disorder, will launch its new online ‘Bipolar Wellness Centre’ on World Bipolar Day, March 30th 2015. The ground-breaking Bipolar Wellness Cen ...

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NANAIMO – 41 new units of supportive housing are currently under construction for men and women who are homeless or at-risk of homelessness in Nanaimo. Once complete, the four-storey building on 1597 Boundary Crescent will be the fou ...

The Granville Youth Health Centre offers a wide range of support, including primary care, mental health care, psychiatric assessment, counselling, independent living skills programs, and housing support for people 24 years old and under ...

The World Health Organization, along with the Mental Health Commission of Canada, has endorsed the transformation of mental health care based on a recovery model that promotes consumer empowerment and involvement in service delivery ...

After battling addictions for more than four decades, Debra Rowe now feels she is on the correct path, thanks in large part to her new home (image by Aaron Hinks/Nanaimo Daily News) After 43 years of addiction, Debra Rowe now feels as th ...

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This year's Nanaimo Fringe Festival runs from August 13-23, 2015 -- and guess what? The performing groups were selected by lottery earlier this month. We speak with festival producer Chelsee Damen. Nanaimo's annual Fringe theatre f ...

As government funding for nonprofits is reduced and competition for limited funding increases, organizations are being pushed to become more self-sufficient and sustainable According to the B.C. Centre for Social Enterprise, "social ...

The Vancouver Island Water Watch Coalition and the mid-Island chapter of The Council of Canadians are calling on the City of Nanaimo, and the Nanaimo Regional District, to take greater steps to protect local drinking water A rare " ...

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Dr. Barnabas Walther, executive director of Vancouver Island Mental Health Society (formerly Columbian Centre) and Peter Giovando, chair of the board of directors, at a special meeting of the society in February 2015 A message from ...

Vancouver Island Mental Health Society (formerly Columbian Centre Society) board member (and Vancouver Island University professor) Mark Blackell will head to this year's Boston Marathon and he hopes to raise some much-needed funds for ment ...

"In psychology we call this 'cognitive openings,' when you peel away your old ideas and you’re in a fragile frame of mind; you’re looking for some guidance and leadership." Lorne Dawson (pictured left) is co-director of the Canadian ...

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A former professional organizer, Alison Roberts has helped thousands of people discover a new way of living (hint...less is more) What lies buried beneath your stuff? When people take the time to systematically sort through their stu ...

Hoarding is increasingly recognized as a significant problem within the Island Health region. An estimated 1 in 25 people have some level of hoarding behaviour, and about 11,000 homes may have a hoarding problem in the Greater Victoria area ...

#PinkItForward hashtag leads to donations from Coast Capital Savings, as CKNW radio sponsors awareness campaign It’s easy to show your support for Pink Shirt Day. You can wear your official Pink Shirt on event day, donate to help support a ...

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It’s the leading cause of death for men aged 25-29 and 40-44, Statistics Canada reports It’s a hidden danger in divorce. Karen and Dieter Holman tried to support their son as he underwent what he experienced as the sadness, shame and isola ...

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A volunteer action is like a stone thrown in a lake: its effect has a direct impact. At the same time, like ripples, volunteer efforts reach out far and wide to improve communities. Undeniably, volunteers rock. National Volunteer Wee ...

Local coalitions are taking on advocacy and planning work to help decrease poverty in Nanaimo, while also promoting the concept of a living wage Joanne Bevis and Lynn Burrows are members of a Nanaimo coalition called Ending Poverty T ...

The B.C. Federation of Labour is calling on British Columbia's government to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour In British Columbia, 6.4 per cent of workers -- 120,400 working people -- earn only the minimum wage. B.C.’s minim ...

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All parents are cowards by Michael Christie GALIANO ISLAND, BRITISH COLUMBIA — I have broken my wrists, fingers, a tibia, a fibula, chipped a handful of teeth, cracked a vertebra and snapped a collarbone. I have concussed myself in Talla ...

Of particular concern among scientists and the public is the effect that gut flora may have on mental health Strange but true fact: Our bodies are made of more bacteria than human cells and contains trillions of microbes (bacteria and fu ...

Youth will consult with other youth with bipolar disorder from across the region about their personal strategies for wellness and engage in mutual learning and knowledge exchange The Bipolar Youth Action Project (BYAP) is a research ...

Miles Olson built a ‘feral homestead’ as a squatter, foraging, hunting, gardening and scavenging among a group of like-minded individuals dedicated to living close to the land, in alignment with their values What separates us from th ...

"Uplands Walk is a symbol of community that is inclusive," said McKay. He listed economic benefits of social housing: "When people are in Uplands Walk, they will spend less time in the emergency department of our hospital." Nanaimo has a ...

by Hilary Eastmure Nanaimo’s Uplands Walk supportive housing project officially opened its doors today. The $7 million development was made possible thanks to a partnership between the City of Nanaimo, BC Housing and Pacifica Housing. ...

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Strength in Unity is the first comprehensive anti-stigma intervention project among Asian communities in Canada Strength in Unity is a community-based research project that will build capacity among youth and men from Asian Communiti ...

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Michael Christie's first novel explores the new worlds created when a son grows out of his agoraphobic mother's safety net And Will has certainly never gotten to know anyone other than his mother, a fiercely loving yet wildly eccentr ...

Agoraphobia is the most common phobic disorder, and is also the most disabling What Is Agoraphobia? Agoraphobia means “fear of open spaces” but it is often a behavioural response to panic attacks. Agoraphobia is the most common ph ...

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Thank you! #BellLetsTalk Day: 122M+ interactions = a @Bell donation of $6,107,538.60 for #mentalhealth in Canada. http://t.co/FJbUvFG74t — Media Relations (@Bell_News) January 29, 2015 ...

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Today -- Wednesday January 28, 2015 -- is the 5th annual Bell Let's Talk Day, with Clara Hughes leading the campaign inviting all Canadians to talk, text and tweet about mental health and help build a Canada free of the stigma of mental ill ...

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British Columbia's annual provincial eating disorders awareness campaign begins February 1, 2015 -- on Facebook here -- on Twitter here Recovery from eating disorders is possible -- but it's a journey Amy Pezzente's (pictured above) ...

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The Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) released the first phase of Informing the Future: Mental Health Indicators for Canada - the first-ever national-level set of indicators that identifies and reports on the mental health of Canad ...

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Quitting smoking is among the top ten in most lists of new year’s resolutions, but nicotine, the drug in cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, is one of the most addictive substances known. It is considered to be as addictive as cocaine or hero ...

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With Papo & Yo and Spirits of Spring, Montreal's Minority Media is riding the wave of a new trend -- producing video games that focus on empathy The New York Times singled out an unlikely video game created by Montreal's Minority ...

Chief Bev Sellars is winner of the 2014 George Ryga Award for Social Awareness for her book "They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School" At age five, Bev Sellars was isolated for two years at the ...

Haven Society and key team members introduced plans for a dedicated Domestic Violence Unit (DVU) in Nanaimo at the society’s annual general meeting in September 2014 ...

The BC Civil Liberties Association and the John Howard Society of Canada have launched a constitutional challenge to the use of solitary confinement in Canadian federal prisons  On Monday January 19, 2015, the BC Civil Liberties A ...

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"We have inculcated a culture in our society that men have to be tough, men have to be strong. Our society is very good at punishing gender deviation in men. Weakness is not considered to be masculine.” -- Dr. Don McCreary (Toronto Men's He ...

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EFT (emotional freedom techniques) practitioner Helena Green specializes in anxiety treatment and says you have the ability to take back control of your life Everyone feels anxiety from time to time. Few people get through a week wit ...

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Imagine telling your children on their 19th birthdays that they must leave the family home, will receive no more financial or emotional support, and are on their own to figure out how to make money or go to school. That is the reality for 7 ...

“I was actively trying to figure out how to help him,” said Heather Thompson of her son’s tragic battle with schizophrenia, a day after the SIU cleared Toronto police in his death.” His name was Ian Pryce. Before schizophrenia took hold ...

It’s 9 a.m. on a Tuesday morning at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and 10 medical students sit around a conference table covered by coffee cups and clipboards. Preparing to start their morning rounds, the students chat about what t ...

TORONTO -- As a yoga devotee and founder of her own studio, Linda Malone is sharing her passion for the practice through a special program dedicated to helping people living with mental illness. Malone is the director of the Blu Matter Proj ...

There was an approximately 10 per cent drop in the demand for food hampers in the Nanaimo Christmas Hamper Program this year. The program, also called Hamperville, is run jointly by the Loaves Fishes food bank and the Salvation Army and has ...

Nanaimo social workers are bracing for an anticipated surge of demand from the homeless and hard-to-house with the arrival of winter in coastal B.C. The thermometer plunged to -3 C overnight Monday, with a low of -6 C forecast overnight thi ...

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The holiday spirit is catching on. In this video, hear how Canadians have embraced giving back during this season. How will you make charitable giving part of your holiday tradition? ...

Ian M. Kysel in The New York Times -- Solitary confinement can be psychologically damaging for any inmate, but it is especially perverse when it is used to discipline children and teenagers. At juvenile detention centers and adult prisons a ...

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"The most uncomfortable aspect of eating disorders is death,” Laia Abril told me over the phone recently. The Spanish photographer was discussing her new book, The Epilogue—a photobook that chronicles a family’s grief over the death the ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs7sub82RNM On the RCMP’s YouTube channel, amid the public safety announcements and career ads, is a video titled “Peter’s story.” Added last week, the video tells the tale of Peter Neily, a constable who ...

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The government has faced widespread calls to limit its use of solitary confinement. The government rejected those calls.  The Canadian government has rejected widespread calls to place limits on solitary confinement in federal prisons, d ...

Canada needs to end its “addiction” to solitary confinement in its prisons, and have judges review any use of segregation beyond short-term “timeouts” of three days or so, retired Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour says. Anything less ...

It’s not about the kitsch, it is about the connection Christmas is traditionally a season of joy, family reunions, friendship and generosity. So why do so many people get so tied up in knots about it all? For some, Christmastime ...

Rich Coleman says province will finalize a plan in the spring New mental health services will be part of a re-imagined government plan for the old Riverview mental hospital next year, says B.C.’s housing minister. While the full scope of ...

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Housing for all not a right, Ontario Court of Appeal rules in rejecting Charter challenge Ontario’s Court of Appeal has quashed a landmark Charter challenge on the right of homeless Canadians to affordable housing. But the divided decisi ...

Hamperville Nanaimo project is launched for Christmas 2014, and asks for much-needed volunteer assistance and food donations as it continues to make a difference in the community Christmas Hampers Nanaimo -- known as Hamperville Na ...

Youth Leaders in Action spend half of their program in a Canadian community and the other half in one of 13 international partner countries 18 youth between the ages of 18 and 25 are in Nanaimo from October 11 to January 2 as part of the ...

Art therapy is a form of therapy that encourages creativity and self-expression as vehicles to reduce stress, improve self-esteem, increase awareness and help remedy trauma. While many other forms of therapy depend on verbal language to exp ...

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https://twitter.com/iconoco/status/538077067372679168 598_pfr 7 years on air_november_27_2014_40 Left-click to listen; right-click to save. Kevin Midbo, Ashta Cormier, Nancy McInnes, and Nic Holt talk about community, radio, and Peop ...

MARCY® PRO CIRCUIT TRAINER PM-4510 (Still in the box) This item is for sale by the Columbian Centre Society to raise funds to help provide transitional housing and community-based support services adults who have psychiatric disabilitie ...

Calling all Canadians: Join the GivingTuesday Movement! Support the Columbian Centre Society on Dec. 2, 2014.  Donate here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd75dRxYuOE&feature=youtube_gdata_player Canada’s second annual GivingTuesda ...

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VANCOUVER - Use of a popular smoking cessation and depression medication led to 64 hospitalizations — including 22 cases admitted to critical care — last year in B.C., according to the province’s Drug and Poison Information Centre. T ...

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"I grew up in what was originally a miner's house on Jingle Pot Road, across the street from the Miners Park subdivision where, in the 1980's, I delivered newspapers on Coal Tyee Trail and Black Diamond Drive" Black Diamond Dust is a ...

Soles Remembering Souls ‐ Connecting Survivors will be held at the Port Theatre in Nanaimo on Sunday November 23, 2014 to support those left behind after deaths by suicide Every year, many people lose their lives to suicide, leaving ...

Research into medicinal cannabis use will examine the potential medical benefits for veterans, first responders and sexual assault survivors with PTSD The University of British Columbia Okanagan and Nanaimo-based Tilray, a Health C ...

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Research into depression has struggled whereas studies of cancer have thrived. The balance could be shifting If the extent of human suffering were used to decide which diseases deserve the most medical attention, then depression would b ...

A street artist from Saskatchewan is creating murals for Nanaimo's Wisteria Lane as locals work to improve the neighbourhood Alyssa Glassford, aka Humanity, has been doing street art for the past twelve years. She has traveled around ...

The Enneagram system suggests that there are nine basic personality types of human nature, and subtypes and variations within the fundamental categories In a thousand ways, writes author/performer T.J. Dawe, our culture directs us to be ...

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Family conflict often underlies youth homelessness, and many homeless youth are fleeing abuse or leaving the care of child welfare services Many different terms are used to describe young people who are homeless, including including ...

When you consider the circumstances of many homeless people, it is not surprising that their lives are shorter than the median It’s no secret that life is hard for the homeless. Now a report indicates that life for the homeless is also s ...

https://twitter.com/peoplefirstrad/status/530739717932056576 The Globe and Mail: Hundreds of homeless die on B.C. streets, report finds (Nov. 6, 2014) ...

“They all believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself so that gave me the chance to be positive and to start looking forward" DARTMOUTH – It doesn’t look like your typical courtroom: there’s artwork on the wall and an inspirational me ...

Haven Society and key team members introduced plans for a dedicated Domestic Violence Unit (DVU) in Nanaimo at the society’s annual general meeting in September Local community partners, working with the RCMP, will make herstory ...

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Annual report card grades the B.C. government on its compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), ratified by Canada in December 1981 VANCOUVER -- On October 16, 2014, West Coast ...

When Robin Williams died, we promised to tackle the stigma of mental illness. So why do we mock Amanda Bynes? https://twitter.com/peoplefirstrad/status/527209278567112705

“What had happened to our beautiful happy life? Could it really be over for us? I just wasn’t sure if our love was strong enough to keep us together. I probably believed it wasn’t.” It was an idyllic marriage. John and Marion were high s ...

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Daniel Smith gives a searingly brutal, honest account of his experience with schizophrenia to Vice News A year ago this winter, I began to not recognize myself. Sleep was the first thing to change. Progressively, over the course of ...

“We are strengthening programs and supports to assist undergraduate and graduate students build resilience and healthy coping strategies, thereby fostering personal and academic success” The University of Victoria is launching a comp ...

https://twitter.com/peoplefirstrad/status/524757068319035393 The Huffington Post: We need to end the stigma around mental illness (October 21, 2014) ...

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Despite the global recession, homelessness in cities around the world is falling. Can a controversial strategy to give homeless people a roof first – that is, before addressing drug abuse or mental health – take the credit? At a soup kit ...

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Any traumatic experience, or multiple traumas, can cause post-traumatic stress disorder Kalina Christoff felt overwhelmed and pressured to accept medical procedures she didn’t want during the birth of her first child, a “dehumanizing” ex ...

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Escape the corporate media desert and make community radio your oasis for local, alternative, grassroots, and accessible music and information Community radio is about volunteerism, social engagement, independent music, learning by d ...

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Christopher Brown -- aka "Farmer Brown" -- participates in a locally owned and operated growers co-operative that delivers food to Nanaimo's Farmer's Markets A little over a year ago a group of local farmers just south of Nanaimo formed ...

From men's rights to domestic violence, we convene a men's panel to focus on current issues When a men's rights group working against "bigotry that is routinely practiced against men and boys in this culture" planned its first major conf ...

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Housing First isn’t just cost-effective. It’s more effective, period. In 2005, Utah set out to fix a problem that’s often thought of as unfixable: chronic homelessness. The state had almost two thousand chronically homeless people. Most ...

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Be part of the story of recovery...help us to develop rehabilitative housing, community acceptance and understanding of people with mental illness and addictions Your Giving is Matched! Bienfaisance Foundation will match your giving do ...

ACT teams of police, social workers and health experts have trimmed hospital visits and jail time for the mentally ill As B.C.’s mayors called on the province to reopen long-term residential beds for the most severely addicted and mental ...

Nanaimo filmmaker Paul Manly has been visiting communities and hearing from individuals affected by mining projects in El Salvador and the tactics of Investor State Dispute Settlements (ISDS) used by mining companies On September 10, ...

B.C. New Democrats say citizens living near the Mount Polley disaster are facing fall rains and winter setting in without even knowing what the plans are for the massive cleanup effort that is needed "The scale is hard to imagine," wrote ...

The HeroWork Society helps non-profits renovate community infrastructure at a fraction of the normal cost and time---with modern-day versions of an old-fashioned barn-raising When Victoria's Threshold Housing Society received the don ...

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"For people like Jessica, who don't have employee benefits and don't have extra money to pay for treatment, there are few options" When Amanda's friend Jessica (not her real name) lost her job and spent a year desperately seeking---b ...

Three veterans who served Canada in the former Yugoslavia—Steve Hartwig, Jason McKenzie, and Scott McIntyre McFarlane—have marched across the country to raise awareness of PTSD When Steve Hartwig, Jason McKenzie and Scott McFarlane arriv ...

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A women's self-defense workshop held in late August was attended by over 20 women, prompting organizers to plan for another in September Vancouver Island Jiu Jitsu instructor ("professor") Robert Biernacki and colleague Cathal Walsh offe ...

A recent Wisteria Lane walk-through for city officials, politicians, the media and the public gave neighbours a chance to show the progress they've made Nob Hill-area residents in Nanaimo, who live along a laneway they've named Wisteria ...

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North Shore Schizophrenia Society’s Cheryl Zipper and Nancy Ford both benefited from hearing about others who had gone through similar experiences Cheryl Zipper says her son was always extremely shy, but it wasn’t until he was about 13 t ...

https://twitter.com/peoplefirstrad/status/511508294478102528 RELATED | People First Radio: A Nanaimo neighbourhood looks to the structure of its physical spaces to reduce crime, increase stability (July 29, 2014) | ...

https://twitter.com/peoplefirstrad/status/510863743597965313 MORE: A Nanaimo neighbourhood looks to the structure of its physical spaces to reduce crime, increase stability ...

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https://twitter.com/BroadbentInst/status/510249558471753728 The Broadbent Institute says that Canada has an inequality problem: "It's deep. It's persistent. And it's time to take action." This report uses custom Statistics Canada dat ...

Members of Haven Society and the Nanaimo RCMP are planning to form a specialized team for supporting victims of domestic violence and holding offenders accountable Haven Society will introduce plans for a Domestic Violence Unit (DVU) in ...

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Psychologist argues face-to-face interactions should be a priority to stave off loneliness and make us more resilient You exercise regularly. You watch what you eat. But when was the last time you hung out with a friend or family member ...

Kelly Hrudy and his daughter Kaitlin share the story of Kaitlin's struggle with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, focusing on awareness and recovery Nearly one in five Canadian children and adolescents will be touched by a menta ...

https://twitter.com/peoplefirstrad/status/509335900065890304 video CBC The National: The mother of Damian Clairmont, a Calgary man who in January died fighting with ISIS in Syria, travels to France to meet the mother of another young ...

Nanaimo hip hop artist dedicates his latest video to the uniqueness present in all who have seen hardships and have the compassion to know that we are all human Vancouver Island hip hop artist Matt Dunae---aka SirReal---has released the ...

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Michael Pond's harrowing two-year journey to sobriety takes stops in abandoned sheds, dumpsters, ditches, emergency wards, intensive care and, finally, prison After two decades of helping clients battle addiction, Mike Pond, a successful ...

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You and everyone you know will touched by the disease. How are we going to get through this? From The New Republic---Try as we do, us Americans still croak. One and all, somehow, even today. We are done in by ten likely suspects: hea ...

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It's common for parents to experience the stigma attached to mental-health problems, addictions and developmental disabilities From The Globe and Mail---Raising a child with a mental-health challenge, an addiction or a developmental disa ...

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We would like to thank everyone who attended the sixth Annual Neighbours Being Neighbours Community Gathering held on August 9, 2014. It was a huge success! Special thanks go out to all the volunteers. We couldn’t have done it withou ...

Les Kurkendaal takes Nanaimo Fringe audiences to Bakersfield, California, where his lover’s family lives in all-white isolation What happens when a man brings his male lover home to his family in Bakersfield, California, for the holidays ...

Adult-rated show at Nanaimo Fringe takes the audience into 'jock boy' and 'square girl' stereotypes, challenging everyone with questions about objectification and relationships SQUARE: A Stage Pornography is an erotic comedy that explore ...

New Nanaimo theatre company uses 'devised production' technique to create a tale of two women---one institutionalized and the other a nurse, trying to help Feeling a little normal? Come a-muse yourself inside Grace’s head for an hour. Sh ...

An explosive, deeply affecting study of alienation and the redemptive power of love, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea was written in 1983 but retains its funny, frightening, and hypnotic appeal At a rundown bar in the Bronx two of society ...

Brent Hirose brings "The Sucker Punch" to Nanaimo, new shows to Vancouver, continues living and learning on the fringe circuit A new technology allows you go to back in time... for five seconds. Just long enough to take back a misplace ...

Quiet debut of theatre gem part of the fringe experience as Nanaimo writer-director William Anderson introduces an exploration of life and relationships in "When the Stars are Right" Ellen, a successful novelist, is content with her wo ...

Dynamic workshop on the psychology, theory and practical realities of self-defense for women will be hosted by Robert Biernacki and Cathal Walsh on August 24, 2014 On February 25, 2013, Statistics Canada released an updated version of t ...

Research shows that certain types of news coverage can produce emotional responses associated with stress and that the biggest effect comes from traumatic events covered in a sensational way* A recent survey of more than 2,500 Americans ...

We enthusiastically invite you to participate in the upcoming Annual Mid-Island Charity Golf Tournament, hosted by Colliers International and the Nanaimo Clippers this Friday August 15, 2014. We are excited to announce that CBC hockey comme ...

The 4th annual Nanaimo Fringe Festival will run August 14th – 24th, 2014 and 8 companies will perform for live audiences that might love, hate, be transfixed or even startled...it's perfect for developing, emerging and experimenting artists ...

Can you imagine experiencing a long-duration mission on Mars---while here on Earth? Ross Lockwood grew up in the small Canadian town of Winfield, British Columbia, where he developed a passion for science, engineering, and space explorat ...

West Africa's Ebola crisis is a harbinger of future outbreaks and a test of how well Canada will do against worse infections, says The Tyee's Crawford Kilian The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) recommended July 31, 2014 that Canadi ...

Performers Donna Konsorado and celtic-folk group Trinitude are set to perform at the annual Neighbours Being Neighbours community gathering on Saturday August 9th Two Nanaimo-area musicians will be showcasing their talents at an upcoming ...

Nanaimo's Wisteria Lane neighbours look to the structure of physical spaces to reduce crime, increase stability During the recent past, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada, there has been an increasing interest in the effects ...

The "Lord of the Fringe" was in Nanaimo to present his latest monologue Marathon as a fundraiser for the Nanaimo Fringe Festival Acclaimed fringe theatre veteran TJ Dawe performed his latest show, Marathon, in mid-July in Nanaimo as a ...

Creative nonfiction story Tilly: a Story of Hope and Resilience captures spirit of hope, recovery Monique Gray Smith, an accomplished consultant, writer and speaker, was at the Gabriola Island Public Library earlier this year discussing ...

The importance of recognizing the signs, communicating with the person at risk and getting help or resources for the person at risk safeTALK, a workshop about three hours in duration, is a training that prepares anyone over the age of 15 ...

"Find your lonely road and follow it...follow it through everything to the end of the road and then let go of that road...put it behind you..." In the past three years, 50 recognized Canadian Forces veterans have committed suicide di ...

Inspiration for the clubhouse-based program came from Radio La Colifata of Buenos Aires, Argentina, which broadcast their shows from a psychiatric hospital Radio-UP is an important part of Donald Berman UP House---a "clubhouse" affiliat ...

Food security includes access to healthy, affordable food; it also includes knowing what is in the food we eat New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Murray Rankin (Victoria) recently put forward a motion in the House of Commons calli ...

The benefits of local and organic food production are huge---providing significant environmental and social benefits "There’s no doubt people are becoming increasingly passionate about buying local, in-season food and locally produced go ...

As helpers, we need to ensure that we are not falling into a vicious circle of helping others but draining ourselves, says author Debbie Holmes The helping profession is filled with people who are selfless and giving. If you are a help ...

16 British Columbia artists, men and women, senior both in years and professional stature, share their personal take on life, the human condition, aging, the passage of time, and the search for meaning and purpose in life Aging is a ...

Employment and socialization are important to everyone. Experiencing them can be challenging for people living with a developmental disability Since opening in June of 2011, COCO Cafe has become a bustling community hub that truly is “Wh ...

34 clergy and faith groups from Victoria and across Canada have signed a statement of concern about the proposed federal bill that makes buying and advertising sex illegal Faith leaders in Victoria and across the country are speaking ...

Therapist Michael Pond has been captivated by rigorous and extensive research that argues millions of people who are prescribed psychotropic drugs derive no benefit from them and, in fact, may be making their illness worse by taking them ...

Income is the strongest determinant of health---and living in poverty is not just an economic and political issue, but fundamentally an issue of human health How much money you make is more important than what you eat, how much you exerc ...

New research network will develop strategies to ensure that more young people are connected to the mental health services they need In Canada, one-in-five people experience a mental illness in their lifetime. However, it is young Canadia ...

Participants with mental illness, addictions thrive after being given apartments: five-year national study click to view VANCOUVER---A five-year study that housed people with mental illness and drug addictions in apartments scattered ...

Project involves a partnership between three nonprofits and will offer 41 individual units, 24/7 support presence Construction will begin this summer on a supportive housing project in Nanaimo to be jointly operated by Columbian Centre, ...

Advocate Adrienne Montani says that some good work was done assisting families with crisis situations, but there is no evidence that they are no longer living in poverty In April 2012 the government of British Columbia announced that sev ...

Robotics experts are investigating the ethical implications inherent to firsthand interactions between humans and robots More than 20 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates have endorsed a joint statement calling for a ban on weapons that would ...

Erin Warner of Nanaimo will be hiking up Mt Benson on Saturday June 28th, 2014 in support of the Columbian Centre Society. Erin will be joined by Jenga (the dog) who will be leading his humans, Kerrie Jack and her partner Rasa, on a hike. ...

British Columbia's education conflicts reveal the competition for funds between public and independent schools, and the political conflict between two visions of society In British Columbia---and also in Alberta and Ontario---teachers se ...

What happens when religious beliefs clash with human rights in the teaching of law British Columbia lawyers voted overwhelmingly on June 10, 2014 in favour of a motion directing the Benchers of the Law Society of BC to declare that Trini ...

Society's wait-and-see inactivity---until something horrible happens---in effect criminalizes mental illness, says Austin Mardon Austin Mardon is an academic, author, and community leader who has participated in community based volunteer ...

Tuesday June 24, 2014 at 5:00 pm Please join the Columbian Centre Society’s Board of Directors for our Annual General Meeting to review the work of the Society, and learn about the plans for the coming year. Columbian Centre's Barnabas W ...

The Reena Virk tragedy has become teaching for all of us In the years since their daughter, Reena Virk, was murdered in Victoria B.C., Suman and Manjit Virk have made their work against bullying a top priority. In November 2009 British C ...

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction takes a panoramic yet highly intimate look at the widespread and perplexing human ailment of addiction From street-dwelling drug addicts to high-functioning workaholics, ...

It has been described as a ‘hideously destructive substance’…and ‘the most addictive drug in the world’. Methamphetamine is a drug with high potential for widespread abuse—due to the portability of its manufacture. Canada’s meth problem ...

Theo Boere, Executive Director of the Men's Centre in Nanaimo will be with us to discuss the general social attitudes which still restrict men in so many ways, some examples of which are: the Equal Parenting Bill C-560, currently before ...

Alzheimer’s disease is the second most feared disease for Canadians as they age.  With many Nanaimo residents 50 years of age or older, dementia is becoming a pressing health issue locally (Source: Nanaimo Bulletin May 6, 2014). The Alzh ...

Thank you to all our sponsors, volunteers and guests for making the 4th Annual Mental Wellth Gala, held on May 9 2014 at the Grand Hotel, a fun and entertaining event.  We would also like to thank our performers Phil Dwyer, Louise Rose, Joa ...

Community Living BC’s vision for inclusive employment is “Every person with a disability who wants a job is employed”. More and more people with developmental disabilities want to work at jobs they enjoy, earn their own wages and feel value ...

Kim Goldberg is an award-winning poet, journalist and author of six books. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies around the world. She has lived in Nanaimo for more than thirty years. Latest titles: RED ZONE (poems of ...

Every year, one in five Canadians will experience a mental health problem or illness, at a cost of over $50 billion to our economy. Partners for Mental Health, is a national organization that works to toward a new vision of mental health.  ...

Crisis Line Awareness Week: March 23-29, 2014 Provincial funding has been assured through March 31, 2015, for the 1800SUICIDE (1.800.748.2433) and 310Mental Health Support (310.6789) phone lines. These are networks that enhance access to ...

The Nanaimo Brain Injury Society stands for an inspired world where the importance of neurological health and excellent care is a priority: where the removal of barriers to participation is imperative; and where all preventable brain in ...

May is Physiotherapy Month and also Bike to Work Month. Kari Watson, is a physiotherapist at the Outpatient Clinic of the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital. Tune in to People First Radio on CHLY 101.7FM this Thursday at noon, for a co ...

NANAIMO RCMP VICTIM SERVICES: WHO THEY ARE, WHAT THEY DO AND HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED AS A VOLUNTEER. Nanaimo RCMP Victim Services provides a variety of services to victims of crime and other personal tragedies.  They work from a client ...

Loaves and Fishes Community Food Bank is hoping a student-only food depot at John Barsby Secondary School will serve as a blueprint for depots in other schools.  The food depot program at the Nanaimo school supplies hampers that provide foo ...

The Nanaimo Community Hospice provides counseling and support to people with serious progressive illnesses where a cure is not expected and to their families and caregivers. Support is provided during the end of life and for family members ...

Gwen Vonarx is the Program and Event Coordinator for the Mid-Island Branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association.  On Thursday, April 10th, she will join People First Radio live in studio to introduce the Mid-Island Branch: what they ar ...

A 2012 Angus Reid poll showed that 80% of Canadians support the right of terminally ill patients to have medical assistance to die.  Similarly, an Environics Institute poll released December 2013 found Quebec residents are more likely than ...

In the tradition of pioneers such as Jackson Katz (Violence against women: it’s a men’s issue) and Tony Porter (co-founder of A call to men: The national association of men and women committed to ending violence against women), Nanaimo Fami ...

This is actually happening in our community!  And it is happening much more frequently than we would like to think.  Survivors rarely step forward with a report to the police- the reasons for this are many and are understandable- she wonder ...

An exceptional simulation and training experience in Courtenay April 15, 2014 & Campbell River April 16, 2014 The goals of this experience are to: • Learn about the subjective experience of hearing voices that are distressing • Bec ...

On our February 6, 2014 People First Radio broadcast, we will be talking about the Victoria Human Exchange Society and their two houses in Nanaimo.  Mary Gordon House was just opened in December of 2013.  The name of the society is take ...

The beginning of February marks the start of the Provincial Eating Disorders Awareness (PEDAW) campaign. On this week’s People First Radio broadcast on January 30,2014, we feature interviews with people from different aspects of this import ...

The beginning of February marks the start of the Provincial Eating Disorders Awareness (PEDAW) campaign. On this week’s People First Radio broadcast on January 30,2014, we feature interviews with people from different aspects of this import ...

The beginning of February marks the start of the Provincial Eating Disorders Awareness (PEDAW) campaign. On this week’s People First Radio broadcast on January 30,2014, we feature interviews with people from different aspects of this import ...

The beginning of February marks the start of the Provincial Eating Disorders Awareness (PEDAW) campaign. On this week’s People First Radio broadcast on January 30,2014, we feature interviews with people from different aspects of this import ...

Largest private sector employer of Aboriginal men and women invests in education and training BC Aboriginal Mine Training Association is a large organization with locations in Vancouver, Kamloops, Williams Lake, Cranbrook, New Aiyansh and ...

A new study shows that non-abstinence based housing does not enable alcohol use, but actually decreases it. A controversial project using a housing-first approach with chronically alcoholic homeless people in Seattle has been shown to decr ...

Returning guest Andrea will update listeners on her efforts to educate others on the effects of Bipolar Disorder On January 23rd, Nancy and Ashta will speak with Andrea Paquette, AKA the Bipolar Babe.  Andrea is the executive director of ...

What are the policy and cultural relations implications of inaccurate and constructed images? On Friday February 4th 2011, Vancouver Island University professor Keith Smith gave a talk called “On Black Hawks, Pontiacs, and Crazy Horse ...

 Home is a Beautiful Word is the title of Joel Bernbaum’s new play on homelessness. Joel has a Masters in Journalism from Carleton University. His thesis topic was “Verbatim Theatre as a form of journalism”. This play is entirely made ...

Space Still Available! Register Now An exceptional simulation and training experience--Monday January 27, 2014 The goals of this experience are to: • Learn about the subjective experience of hearing voices that are distressing • Becom ...

Thursday January 9th and Monday January 13th on People First Radio...  Samaritan House Launches Campaign Nanaimo’s Samaritan House in is operated by the Island Crisis Care Society. It has been in operation since 1989 and is badly in n ...

Bobbi Schram and Joan Wallace + The Martys played at a fundraiser held Friday November 15th to benefit Columbian Centre Society. Kevin and Ashta hosted the night of performances which focused on issues related to health and wellness. On ...

Some renters are in real need of help to face systemic barriers that make finding housing difficult Ready to Rent B.C. was established when a group of housing and service-related agencies came together to find ways of helping families ...

HIV and AIDS have been with us for thirty years but stigma and its effects continue to create harm VICTORIA, BC---While this year’s UNAIDS World AIDS Day theme, ‘Getting to Zero’, aims to achieve zero new HIV infections and zero AIDS d ...

Columbian Centre's People First Radio media-based education initiative is about to enter its seventh year with new leadership People First Radio, an initiative offered by Nanaimo’s Columbian Centre—in partnership with the Radio Malaspina ...

Negative connotations surrounding projects can make things difficult, says Nanaimo Affordable Housing Society executive director Jim Spinelli Jim Spinelli doesn't like the term 'low-barrier housing,' despite his 17-year involvement with ...

Columnist Mitchell Anderson writes that along with Rob Ford, Canada's political leadership has hit rock bottom while 'dumbing down democracy' Fresh from the reality TV spectacle of the Senate scandals, Canadians have been offered a new s ...

Weight bias among health professionals influences quality of health care for people with obesity, finds University of Alberta obesity researcher EDMONTON---Five days after undergoing gastric bypass surgery to reduce the size of her stoma ...

'Recovery Speaks', a series of free interactive learning sessions, is being offered to the public in Victoria and Nanaimo by the Cedars at Cobble Hill Society Addiction is a chronic and progressive health issue affecting the body, mind a ...

A fundraiser for Columbian Centre, a musical feast for you! Come and join us for a unique evening of live music by local musicians. The program will explore popular songs inspired by mental health and addictions experiences. Friday No ...

Read all about it in the latest Columbian Centre Currents newsletter Since mental disorders and addictions are usually consigned to the healthcare domain, it is not surprising that most attention is channeled into the notion of illness a ...

Michael Wesch says the power of today's technology to change our relationships and culture is unprecedented Kansas State University professor Michael Wesch starts with a simple premise, according to his bio at National Geographic: all hu ...

John Howard Society executive director says Ottawa’s proposed victims’ rights bill distracts from the real crisis in Canadian justice, and promises yet further regress Catherine Latimer of the national John Howard Society, has written an ...

West coast legal group releases report card on women's rights in B.C. as international groups hear testimony about the disappearances of indigenous women and girls West Coast LEAF has released its 5th annual report card on women’s rights ...

On October 26, West Coast LEAF will celebrate Persons Day in Nanaimo with a special breakfast featuring constitutional expert Kasari Govender. Govender will be speaking on the intersections of legal aid and women’s equality. In light of ...

A new supportive housing project on Uplands Drive is underway and received a sunny kickoff from officials on site Wednesday. By fall 2014, 6025 Uplands Dr. will be home to a 33-unit housing facility for people 45 and up who are homeless ...

The truly shocking aspect of revelations concerning the use of native children as research subjects is that we were shocked by the revelation, says author Tom Koch Demonstrations were held across the country Thursday July 25, 2013 as a g ...

“The City of Nanaimo greatly supports projects that integrate affordable and supportive housing with our existing communities," mayor says NANAIMO– Construction is underway for Uplands Walk, a new 33-unit supportive housing development f ...

Former prime minister Paul Martin says that the only way in which the vow of 'never again' can have any substance is if people have a full awareness of what happened Food, health and nutrition historian Ian Mosby, in what he called the m ...

Researchers say that the education of medical students should be based on the best clinical information available, rather than on commercial interests A first-of-its kind study has analyzed the conflict-of-interest policies at the 17 med ...

"The failure of electoral politics to address what's really at stake means an increasing number of...issues are destined to be resolved through various forms of protest and civil disobedience" Before photographer and essayist Christo ...

Mad Pride is an arts, culture, and heritage festival created by psychiatric survivors, consumers, mad people, and folks the world has labelled “mentally ill” Mad Pride Toronto holds "a Celebration of Madness" from July 8th to July 14th,2 ...

World Mental Health Day on October 10, 2013 focuses on the mental health of older adults Every year on 10th of October, The World Health Organization joins in celebrating the World Mental Health Day. The day is celebrated at the initiati ...

Jeremy Loveday's YouTube message implores men to speak up and act against sexual violence, generating thousands of views, links from political leaders, and some controversy Performance poet, community builder, change agent. Those are the ...

Men's centres on campuses are needed, advocates say, but so are programs designed to support men in other communities In a visit that was probably destined to create controversy, Miles Groth, an educator and activist in the men's rights ...

Report by the British Columbia Representative for Children and Youth prompts immediate reaction from governments in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, along with pledges to improve child safety The tragic case of a young Aboriginal girl ...

Award-winning play is based on one citizen's experience after being swept up by the Toronto police response to G20 protests---which constituted the largest peacetime mass arrest in Canadian history You Should Have Stayed Home (aka #G20Ro ...

Unique resources-focused project recognizes the appeal of visual content---as well as formal and informal sources of information sought by youth who need help The province of Ontario is supporting an innovative program that helps youth w ...

As you may or may not have heard, the Great Lake Walk Society has cancelled this year’s Great Lake Walk. The walk was 56 km and was to take place on Sept 21st.  Columbian Centre Society greatly appreciates your support towards our operation ...

If the Sensible B.C. campaign collects over 400,000 signatures from across the province, the group says there will be a referendum in British Columbia to decriminalize marijuana possession in 2014 A group called Sensible BC is working to ...

Pro-rape chants at St. Mary's University and University of British Columbia lead to national attention and backlash Photo by Michael Courier, www.michaelcourier.com A chant promoting non-consensual sex with underage girls has created ...

"The lack of financial resources itself can lead to impaired cognitive function. The very condition of not having enough can actually be a cause of poverty." Poverty and all its related concerns require so much mental energy that the poo ...

New mothers living on very low incomes are more than 20 times more likely to experience multiple health problems than new mothers living on high incomes The Centre for Research on Inner City Health analyzed health survey data representat ...

Not handy with a golf club??? Skilled at wielding cutlery? If golf isn’t your thing, but good food is, please consider joining us for dinner only at the 3rd Annual Colliers International Mid-Island Charity Golf Tournament. For $45 you get ...

Stories and reflections encourage and support readers in living vibrantly through wholeheartedly embracing life's challenges Gail Boulanger is a coach and counselor for “vibrant living” in Nanoose Bay on Vancouver Island. She says that v ...

Our culture promotes the belief that aging means decline, dependence and dementia, or at best isolation and depression---yet most elders are healthier, better educated and productive both economically and socially, than they were earlier in ...

Governments say they can’t afford poverty reduction policies but fail to consider the cost paid for consequences of poverty Poverty is a hardship for those who experience it; it’s also costly to society. Governments say they can’t afford ...

Despite solid performance, high rates of poverty and a large gap in income between the rich and everyone else put stress on a society and on the economy The Conference Board of Canda is an independent, not-for-profit applied research org ...

The Edmonton Homelessness Commission reports that a chronically homeless person costs taxpayers $100,000 annually -- but one night's accommodation in an emergency shelter costs only $42 Some of Canada's homeless people are being descri ...

The medical consequences of eating disorders can go unrecognized, even by experienced clinicians Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses with significant, life-threatening medical and psychiatric morbidity and mortality, regardless ...

Drum circles provide support, improving emotions and feelings in people struggling with eating disorders A drum circle is a rhythm-based event where people gather in a circle to express themselves with African drums and percussion instru ...

Amy Candido lives in recovery from eating disorders The beginning of February each year marks the launch of the Provincial Eating Disorders Awareness (PEDAW) campaign and National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. PEDAW coordinator Amy ...

Former prime minister Paul Martin says that the only way in which the vow of 'never again' can have any substance is if people have a full awareness of what happened Food, health and nutrition historian Ian Mosby, in what he called the m ...

The truly shocking aspect of revelations concerning the use of native children as research subjects is that we were shocked by the revelation, says author Tom Koch Demonstrations were held across the country Thursday July 25, 2013 as a g ...

Author Dmitry Orlov says that if financial, commercial, and political collapse are met with appropriate responses, the more extreme aspects of social and cultural collapse could be prevented  The City of Detroit's bankruptcy filing made ...

Reports of Nanaimo's healthy economy may be partly behind the sudden influx seen by agencies The number of homeless people using Nanaimo emergency shelters is higher and came earlier than usual during the summer. Some people---men in ...

Study shows how Canada lacks a coherent response to end violence against women---and says costs related to that violence rival those related to the use of illegal drugs Progress on ending violence against women in Canada is stalled by ...

Mary Deacon has faced and dealt with mental health issues---in her own life and the lives of those close to her---and has become a high-profile corporate advocate for mental illness education and awareness When Mary Deacon, the chair of ...

Mad Pride is an arts, culture, and heritage festival created by psychiatric survivors, consumers, mad people, and folks the world has labelled “mentally ill” Mad Pride Toronto holds "a Celebration of Madness" from July 8th to July 14th,2 ...

Researchers say that the education of medical students should be based on the best clinical information available, rather than on commercial interests A first-of-its kind study has analyzed the conflict-of-interest policies at the 17 med ...

"The failure of electoral politics to address what's really at stake means an increasing number of...issues are destined to be resolved through various forms of protest and civil disobedience" Before photographer and essayist Christo ...

Join us on August 10th to celebrate community, diversity and children by encouraging neighbourliness among all people Have fun meeting your neighbours in a family-friendly environment while enjoying live music, great food and activities ...

Vancouver Coastal Health will no longer fund a range of community-based mental health groups, in a decision that was reportedly based on VCH's imperative to focus on "core health services" Five community-based nonprofit groups on the wes ...

Canada's national mental health strategy says peer support is an essential component of mental health services---but also recognizes it's not yet seen as a core part of the recovery process The Mental Health Strategy for Canada promotes ...

On the Road...to Find Out includes the stories of three people who relocated to Nanaimo for mental health services, comments from service providers, and the observations of Nanaimo psychiatrist Dr. Joris Wiggers A new documentary film, O ...

People will be riding their way across British Columbia Sunday June 23, 2013 to support programs for women and families experiencing mental health challenges Ride Don’t Hide is a community bike ride hosted by the Canadian Mental Health A ...

Lawyers for homeless and inadequately housed Ontarians have appeared in Ontario Superior Court of Justice to argue against a government motion to strike their landmark legal challenge In the spring of 2010, several individuals and the Ce ...

Seniors homelessness is on the rise in Greater Victoria---prompting a call for more age-appropriate housing A change is being seen among homeless people in Victoria, British Columbia. Alan Rycroft, a spokesperson for the Victoria Cool Ai ...

More than 500 people, including newly elected MLA Darryl Plecas and Abbotsford Mayor Bruce Banman, show support for an expanded "Walk Away From Homophobia" event More than 500 people took part in the Fraser Valley's first Pride parade on ...

LGBTQ youth experience health inequities, mostly attributable to societal stigma and marginalization and its related risks of rejection and violence, as well as lower social supports Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Two-Spirit, queer ...

Law Project for Psychiatric Rights is one of several activist groups charging that the American Psychiatric Association is committing serious human rights abuses The 2013 annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) was h ...

"It made me want to die ... I remember that they would stick a rag in my mouth so I wouldn't bite through my tongue and that it took three attendants to hold me down" Ted Chabasinski is an American psychiatric survivor, human rights acti ...

The 'Sally Ann' has been serving and working in Nanaimo, and Vancouver Island, for 125 years The Salvation Army is the largest provider of social services across Canada, outside of government. But for many ordinary Canadians, the closest ...

Where do you go when an invisible matrix spanning the globe is making you sick? Author Kim Goldberg has been awarded a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to write a book about people who are physically sickened by their exposure ...

Civil Rights Now and its Think Twice campaign is building toward the ultimate goal of a "British Columbians with Disability Act" "When your civil rights have been violated you don’t need a good hug---you need a good lawyer." That's what ...

Martha Carter shares a multimedia performance reflecting her own 'twisted' journey of living with a crooked spine while pursuing a career in dance THE STRAIGHT (Vancouver)---Martha Carter empties a little black bag onto the dance-studio ...

Our culture promotes the belief that aging means decline, dependence and dementia, or at best isolation and depression---yet most elders are healthier, better educated and productive both economically and socially, than they were earlier in ...

Pulling back the curtain on the widely felt, seldom-discussed discrimination that Chinese seniors face every day In Vancouver’s Chinatown, seniors who speak only Cantonese or Mandarin face discrimination, marginalization, and a lack of a ...

New research finds implications for two groups affected by HIV and AIDS---women and gay men New research presented at conferences in Victoria and Vancouver this month have highlighted several challenges related to HIV/AIDS prevention a ...

It seems words can indicate pivotal differences among shelters for homeless people during British Columbia winters British Columbia's Extreme Weather Response program enables communities to temporarily increase emergency shelter capacity ...

Tom Grauman, executive director at the Columbian Centre Society, praised the city for identifying the site for affordable housing A new affordable, long-term housing project in Nanaimo cleared a major milestone Monday as city council app ...

An information session on the Boundary Crescent social housing project attracted a hundred interested Nanaimoites last week Construction is expected to begin this summer on a four-storey, 41-unit supportive housing project at 1597 Bounda ...

Housing first makes better use of public dollars---especially for those who are high service users In 2008 the federal government invested $110 million for a five year demonstration project aimed at providing evidence about what services ...

Housing First approaches prove to be effective and can change lives A three-year-long intensive multi-city study looking into the effectiveness of Housing First approaches is due to end on March 31, 2013. The federal government funded th ...

But no funding has been committed to address increased demands on mediators, arbitrators and family justice counsellors The Province of British Columbia's new Family Law Act took effect on March 18, 2013, replacing the Family Relations A ...

Canada's correctional investigator says stronger leadership and improved implementation of mandated Aboriginal initiatives are needed to address a growing crisis in our prisons More than twenty years after Parliament enacted the Correcti ...

Report on Aboriginal prisoners in Canada finds limited understanding of Aboriginal people, culture and approaches to healing within federal corrections, especially among front line staff in facilities A report by Canada's Correctional In ...

The scandal of Aboriginal incarceration in Canada is getting worse as "tough on crime" policy changes stamp out rehabilitative intent A report by Howard Sapers, Canada's Correctional Investigator, has found that over-representation of Ab ...

But there's next-to-no Canadian data on black fathers. The founder of the Black Daddies Club support group intends to change that with a research project. The Black Daddies Club was founded in 2007 by Brandon Hay in response to the lack ...

The Pidgin Restaurant struggle is part of a larger problem--lack of affordable housing and fear of being priced out of the neighbourhood By the time the mainstream media began to focus its attention on the protests being held at the Pi ...

Law students and members of the University of Victoria’s Poverty Law Club have asked the regional coroner to conduct an investigation Members of the University of Victoria's Poverty Law Club have drawn public and media attention to thirt ...

Calen Pick, his mother Jessie Close, and his aunt, Glenn Close, are working to alter public perception of mental illness through their stigma-fighting campaign Bring Change 2 Mind Calen Pick's famous aunt, Glenn Close, was a keynote spea ...

Despite solid performance, high rates of poverty and a large gap in income between the rich and everyone else put stress on a society and on the economy The Conference Board of Canda is an independent, not-for-profit applied research org ...

Errol Povah's long struggle for a tobacco-free world Several years ago, Errol Povah crossed Canada on a "journey for a tobacco-free world"--which he also described as a "cross-Canada shore-to-shore ‘run, walk or crawl’ awareness and fund ...

Human Rights Watch alleges in an explosive report that members of the R.C.M.P. in northern British Columbia failed to protect indigenous women and girls from violence--and physically and sexually abused some of them The Royal Canadian Mo ...

Laureen Harper, wife of Canada's prime minister, and Ottawa city councillor Allan Hubley praise the programs of Ottawa’s Youth Services Bureau downtown drop-in centre METRO NEWS OTTAWA, February 11, 2013 After years of neglect, youth ment ...

The Edmonton Homelessness Commission reports that a chronically homeless person costs taxpayers $100,000 annually -- but one night's accommodation in an emergency shelter costs only $42 Some of Canada's homeless people are being descri ...

A Victoria-based campaign seeks to discard the street name reminders of British Columbia's troubled history  'Taking the Names Down from the Hill' is a new campaign being launched by SocialCoast.org. It's designed to bring attention to p ...

Some people say mid-winter is the most depressing time of year—when cold and dark days, holiday bills, and already-lapsed new year’s resolutions catch up with us Whether you believe that or not, it’s never a bad time to reflect on how ti ...

"There's been a lot of public scrutiny on this project but we're very optimistic this will work" NANAIMO--Some final architectural tweaks have been made to the 33-unit Uplands Walk supportive housing project as it heads toward the deve ...

Nanaimo Eagles team offers the hockey experience to people with developmental challenges The puck moves quickly up the ice, from the rock-steady defence to the winger flying up the boards on the left side. He skates the puck deep into th ...

June Ariano-Jakes shares a search for answers and the lengths she went to in trying to help her drug-addicted son June Ariano-Jakes is the mother of five adult children and the grandmother of four. While she worked by day as a Licensed C ...

The medical consequences of eating disorders can go unrecognized, even by experienced clinicians Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses with significant, life-threatening medical and psychiatric morbidity and mortality, regardless ...

Amy Candido lives in recovery from eating disorders The beginning of February marks the launch of the Provincial Eating Disorders Awareness (PEDAW) campaign and National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (Feb. 3-9, 2013). PEDAW coordinat ...

Loving our bodies and ourselves is the focus of eating disorders prevention efforts The Provincial Eating Disorders Awareness (PEDAW) campaign is launched the first full week in February with activities and events taking place throughout ...

Drum circles provide support, improving emotions and feelings in people struggling with eating disorders A drum circle is a rhythm-based event where people gather in a circle to express themselves with African drums and percussion instru ...

Workplace managers say that they're informed about mental health issues, but would benefit from training to help employees with mental health problems stay at work or return to work successfully and healthily The Canadian Standards Assoc ...

Quebec could be the first Canadian province to allow terminally ill patients to end their lives A landmark report to the Quebec legislature in March 2012 suggested the province legalize doctor-assisted euthanasia. It recommended the Que ...

Online grieving, whether on Facebook or other social media, is becoming the new normal...but does it actually help? After the campus shootings in the U.S. at Virginia Tech in 2007 and Northern Illinois University in 2008, hundreds of aff ...

 Did You Know? If you shop at the Soap Exchange at Country Club Centre and mention that you support the Columbian Centre, Barry & Shirley Reid, owners of the Soap Exchange, will donate 10% of your dollar value to the Columbian Centre ...

Men and women attending a workshop about gender-based violence emerge with a focus on working together for change Jackson Katz is a social theorist, educator, anti-sexism activist and a major advocate of the ‘bystander approach’ to gende ...

Dying, caregiving and grieving are three of life’s greatest challenges, and the Community Hospice is ready to help Nanaimo Community Hospice has been serving the community for over 30 years, and was Canada's first community-based nonprof ...

A new book capturing the images of some of the west coast’s most admired authors and poets has been launched A new book called 111 West Coast Literary Portraits features rare portraits of emerging, mid-career and well-known writers who h ...

If you’d like to invite Eric Harper to bring his award-winning music into your home, you can join his house concert tour Award-winning guitarist Eric Harper has plans for 2013—and you could be a part of those plans. He says: “I’d love to ...

Author and educator Jackson Katz advocates the ‘bystander approach’ to sexual and domestic violence prevention Jackson Katz is a social theorist, educator, and anti-sexism activist who says that gendered understandings and behaviour are ...

Stories and reflections encourage and support readers in living vibrantly through wholeheartedly embracing life's challenges Gail Boulanger is a coach and counselor for “vibrant living” in Nanoose Bay on Vancouver Island. She says that v ...

The City of Nanaimo has had emails and Facebook posts with concerns about supportive housing projects studied and summarized The planning for social housing in Nanaimo—as in cities and towns in many parts of Canada—has been accompanied b ...

“The expertise gained from lived experience should be complemented by professional expertise, not overwhelmed by it.  All stand to benefit from ensuring that there are as few imbalances as possible in the distribution of power throughout th ...

Ria Voros’ debut novel uses a special relationship to explore the grief of a child whose parents were killed in an accident For thirteen-year-old Jakob, the summer is looking pretty bleak. A few months before, he was in a car accident th ...

Lea Ross and Bev Cole have been working to help people in a Nepalese village to obtain water for its schools After organizing several treks to Nepal after her first visit there twenty years ago, Lea Ross has “fallen in love” with the cou ...

Jim Manly’s participation in a recent mission attempting to deliver aid to Gaza helps raise awareness of needs, issues On October 16, 2012, a tall ship called The Estelle began its voyage from Greece to Gaza, carrying citizens from a num ...

Amanda Todd’s death by suicide—after her video disclosing bullying and harassment —creates a media tsunami The death by suicide of Amanda Todd, who disclosed in a YouTube video the bullying and harassment she had been experiencing, creat ...

Dany Morin, Member of Parliament, asks for a response to bullying and harassment of children and youth in Canada Calling the bullying of children and youth “a nation-wide problem,” N.D.P. Member of Parliament Dany Morin has been asking C ...

Chaplain Diane Weber Bederman says Amanda Todd’s death was more about mental health than bullying In the aftermath of the death by suicide of Amanda Todd, an avalanche of news reports, opinion articles, and social media postings focused ...

Make community radio your oasis for local, alternative, grassroots, and accessible music and information Community radio is about volunteerism, social engagement, independent music, learning by doing, community capacity building, citizen ...

‘Dying with dignity’ has been supported by many members of Unitarian Fellowships across Canada—for over thirty years It’s your life and it should be your choice as to how and when you die. That’s what British Columbia resident Gloria Tay ...

Sara Robichaud’s exploration is shaped and informed by objects of personal and symbolic significance in her life Nanaimo artist Sara Robichaud’s latest collection, Double Life, is a series of large-scale acrylic paintings that explore th ...

Wednesday October 10, 2012 World Mental Health Day raises public awareness about mental health issues. The day promotes open discussion of mental disorders, and investments in prevention, promotion and treatment services. This year the t ...

Pastor Ward Draper is “bringing the church back to where it should be”—and that includes providing clean needles and pipes Pastor Ward Draper is ministering to addicts in Abbotsford, in defiance of the municipality’s ban on harm reductio ...

Nanaimo’s Hub City Cycles promotes the cycling way of life, while bringing people together and building community In the fall of 2011 a group of passionate bike riders became passionate about the idea of starting and working in a communi ...

As the much-hyped documentary film ‘Bully’ began to roll out across North America, we took a look at local experiences The Bully Project is the much-anticipated documentary film that follows stories of several kids who are being bullied ...

What happens if we shift our energies from managing the problem to actually trying to end homelessness? It may seem counterintuitive to suggest that it is cheaper and more cost effective to provide people who experience homelessness with ...

The federal government reinforces criminalization, parents call for education, and doctors and others encourage accurate knowledge about MDMA 22 British Columbians have died in the last 18 months after using the popular party drug Ecstas ...

The federal government had argued that the individuals and non-profit groups involved had no right to bring the case to court A court case was launched in British Columbia in 2008 by an organization of sex workers and one former sex work ...

Columbian Centre board member Mark Willott spoke at the kick-off breakfast for the United Way's campaign in central Vancouver Island, held in Nanaimo on Friday, September 21st. CTV Vancouver Island covered the event, and later interviewed ...

Hoarding is primarily an issue of mental health, but its effects can be very dangerous to safety as well Hoarding is defined by the Mayo Clinic as the excessive collection of items, along with the inability to discard them. Hoarding ofte ...

Empathy, compassion, understanding, awareness—what happens when we try to put ourselves into others’ shoes? Empathy is a relatively common word, but it’s also a concept that is poorly understood. It’s sometimes confused with sympathy, pi ...

On September 15, 2012 Andy Sibbald successfully completed the 56 km Great Lake Walk (breaking his personal best by over 1 hour). Andy raised over $600 (and a few blisters) for Columbian Centre Society. CCS would like to thank Andy and his f ...

The work of community-based organizations in HIV prevention can be linked with the development of democracy The 19th International AIDS Conference was held in Washington D.C. in July 2012, with a focus on how global and decisive commitme ...

Canada may have gone farther than most countries in harsh treatment of HIV non-disclosure. What will the Supreme Court say? Under Canadian law, a person living with HIV may be guilty of a crime for not disclosing his or her HIV-positive ...

International experts, activists, and health professionals agree that ‘we cannot end AIDS until we end the war on drugs’ The 18th International AIDS Conference, held in Vienna in 2010, included a high-profile statement called The Vienna ...

Juno award-winning master musician and composer Phil Dwyer has battled with addiction and mental illness Phil Dwyer’s 2012 Juno award for the incredibly ambitious Changing Seasons is the latest in a “resume full of examples of his genuin ...

Juno award-winning master musician and composer Phil Dwyer has battled with addiction and mental illness Phil Dwyer’s 2012 Juno award for the incredibly ambitious Changing Seasons is the latest in a “resume full of examples of his genuin ...

Homeless shelter was overwhelmed by demand last winter, so now it will only be open during extreme weather conditions The First Unitarian Fellowship of Nanaimo has decided to scale back its shelter operations this year, after being overw ...

Doctors, health experts set minds to making meaning of the senseless and speak of gun violence as a social disease Public health experts now speak of guns in the same way they speak about viruses, cars, tobacco, and alcohol. After the mo ...

Rais Bhuiyan forgave the man who tried to kill him in a hate crime, then campaigned to save him from the death penalty Ten days after the September 11th attacks in the U.S., Texan Mark Stroman entered the gas station where Rais Bhuiyan w ...

A legacy of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games is working with partners across the province to create social innovation 2010 Legacies Now was created in June 2000 by the British Columbia government and the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Bid Corporati ...

"I'm really glad we can do this. It situates a human service within the community. We're not apart, let's just normalize this since anyone of us can have a mental illness" The Neighbours Being Neighbours community gathering on Aug. 11 is ...

Extraordinary film looks into artist’s mind, fears, and his questions about whether he was really even human William Kurelek’s The Maze is a documentary about the life of celebrated Canadian artist William Kurelek, dramatically told thro ...

Karen Liberman believes thousands of workers affected by mental illness are trying to hide it, unable to talk about it Karen Liberman was once so ill with clinical depression that she would sometimes spend 24 hours at a time crying. Thou ...

Toronto’s Houselink is working to hire “people with lived experience”—including former clients—at all levels Houselink Community Homes is a non-profit, charitable agency based in Toronto that provides a range of supportive housing option ...

Join us on Saturday August 11th to celebrate community, diversity and children by encouraging “neighbourliness” among all people. Have fun meeting your neighbours in a family-friendly environment while enjoying live music, great food and a ...

Study finds more return visits to emergency departments for mental health crises among Aboriginal and poor children First Nations children and those from families receiving government subsidies had more return visits to emergency departm ...

Facilitators’ purpose is to invite possibilities to emerge and manifest through engaging people in “real conversations” A group of facilitators, consultants, coaches and health practitioners who are passionate and committed to promoting ...

Gloria Taylor is given the right to physician-assisted suicide but observers expect the federal Conservative government will challenge the ruling A recent British Columbia court ruling has struck down the law that makes physician-assiste ...

"Kindness is much more than just being nice, kindness is the weaving that makes a fabric of a compassionate community." Columbian Centre's Annual General Meeting for 2012 was held on Tuesday June 26. Tom Grauman, the executive director, ...

It is estimated that thousands of Canadians incur a traumatic brain injury each year—the majority being young adults Brain injury occurs suddenly, without warning. In an instant life is changed, forever. Every day we participate in activ ...

NoStigmas raises awareness to erase the stigmas of suicide and mental illness by sharing stories of hope and inspiration A cross-border partnership to end the stigmas associated with suicide and mental illness has been created under the ...

Government surprises many with a host of changes that are designed to support vulnerable families The British Columbia government surprised many on June 11, 2012 when it announced a long list of changes to welfare assistance in the provi ...

Transgender Canadians have won a few significant victories in the ongoing struggle for acceptance and recognition Canada's transgender community, after lengthy struggles with discrimination and bureaucratic obstacles, is now celebrating ...

Cory Silverberg is committed to the work of having thoughtful, accessible, and open conversations about sexuality A reality TV series called “Push Girls” is bringing an unfettered, uncensored glimpse at what it means to be sexy, ambitiou ...

Unexpected land negotiations with City of Nanaimo provide 'challenges' for housing organizations A new low-barrier housing project is on ice in central Nanaimo as operators face unexpected land negotiations with the City of Nanaimo.... B ...

Saturday, September 15th, 2012 www.greatlakewalk.com WILL YOU SUPPORT MY EFFORTS? Great Lake Walk Pledge Form 2012 Andy Sibbald of Nanaimo will take part in the 2012 Great Lake Walk in support of The Columbian Centre Society. ...

Tuesday June 26, 5:00 pm, at Christ Community Church, 2221 Bowen Road, Nanaimo "Poignant beyond words, The Cats of Mirikitani is comparable to finding a pearl in a pile of oyster shells." --The Philadelphia Enquirer Eighty-year-old Ji ...

"What happens is people suffering with mental illness often are homeless or drug taking, and if you are homeless and drug taking you generally come to the attention of police" NANAIMO--Over a decade spent on the streets of Nanaimo, Franc ...

After running across Canada, Wayne Cho brings his stigma-busting and awareness-raising message to a world audience Wayne Cho developed anxiety and bipolar disorders which he says resulted from neglect and abuses he experienced throughout ...

A proposal to establish the first-ever men’s centre at Simon Fraser University brings attention, discussion, and analysis The Simon Fraser University Student Society has approved $30,000 to start a men's centre at SFU's Burnaby campus. T ...

What are the challenges—and what does Canada’s new mental health strategy have to say about it? Canada’s first-ever national mental health strategy was released on May 8, 2012, after five years of extensive consultations across the count ...

After five years of extensive consultation, the Mental Health Commission of Canada presents a first for the country Changing Directions, Changing Lives is the first mental health strategy for Canada. Its purpose is to help improve mental ...

Art project for women builds community spirit while raising awareness about women’s issues Nanaimo Women’s Centre, with the help of artists from the community, offered women and girls the opportunity to create art in a project called her ...

Social media and its implications for people with mental health issues Social media, in the form of Facebook, Twitter, cell phones, and texting, etc. are sweeping through the world, much like a tsunami.  Thrashing about in this churning se ...

Changing Directions, Changing Lives: Canada's first mental health blueprint unveiled Canada’s first strategy to improve the mental health of all Canadians was publicly released Tuesday May 8, 2012 by the Mental Health Commission of Canada ...

The Senate’s human rights committee has launched a study into cyber bullying, and it needs and invites youth input The traditional archetype associated to bullying is becoming outdated. The face of bullying is changing—it’s moving from c ...

Program utilizing a series of facilitated classes was created by psychiatrist frustrated by the limited time he had for patients A course called Living Life To The Full was created by Glasgow psychiatrist Dr. Chris Williams, when he want ...

Shyness, anxiety, and worry in Kindergarten-aged children can be indicators for potential anxiety disorders A University of British Columbia research team has developed a simple two-question test to screen Kindergarten-aged children for ...

A form of psychotherapy, Jungian analysis is an interpersonal process of coming to terms with the unconscious Carl Gustav Jung was a psychiatrist and the founder of analytical psychology. He is considered the first modern psychiatrist to ...

Helani Davison is sharing her compelling autobiographical story of riches to rags—and the struggle to come back Saltspring Island artist and performer Helani Davison has created an autobiographical performance—including narrative, poetry ...

A community dialogue in Nanaimo provides opportunities tor youth to listen, be heard, and make change Central Vancouver Island Multicultural Society will present an opportunity for youth to speak openly about experiences and concerns rel ...

As the much-hyped documentary film ‘Bully’ begins to roll out across North America, we take a look at local experiences The Bully Project is the much-anticipated documentary film that follows stories of several kids who are being bullied ...

Dear Friends of Columbian Centre Society: We enthusiastically invite you to participate in the upcoming second annual Mid-Island Charity Golf Tournament, hosted by Colliers International.   Columbian Centre Society is delighted that it h ...

June Ariano-Jakes shares a search for answers and the lengths she went to in trying to help her drug-addicted son June Ariano-Jakes is the mother of five adult children and the grandmother of four. While she worked by day as a Licensed C ...

Organizer and Anglican priest Rev. Carol Finlay is pioneering the Canadian version of a successful U.K.-based model In 2009 Carol Finlay visited a medium security penitentiary in Kingston, Ontario, and told a small gathering of inmates t ...

Columnist reflects on the generational impact of Canada’s residential schools and coming to terms with the after effects The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) has been making its way across the country, collecting more ...

Governments say they can’t afford poverty reduction policies but fail to consider the cost paid for consequences of poverty Poverty is a hardship for those who experience it; it’s also costly to society. Governments say they can’t afford ...

A peer research project confirms that police have become the de facto first responders for drug and mental health issues Cuts to health services and income supports for people living in poverty, including those with disabilities involvin ...

Interest in local agriculture is surging—whether it’s urban, rural, roof-top, or front-yard—and the benefits may be huge Urban agriculture is surging in British Columbia and across North America, resulting in a growing network of small-s ...

Interest in local agriculture is surging—whether it’s urban, rural, roof-top, or front-yard—and the benefits may be huge Urban agriculture is surging in British Columbia and across North America, resulting in a growing network of small-s ...

Interest in local agriculture is surging—whether it’s urban, rural, roof-top, or front-yard—and the benefits may be huge Urban agriculture is surging in British Columbia and across North America, resulting in a growing network of small-s ...

Stories about artists, lovers, brothers and strangers probe love, loss, and the family ties that bind people Daniel Griffin’s debut collection of short stories, “Stopping for Strangers”, covers birth, death and all the big moments in bet ...

Sei-in Remy Jordan experienced an interfaith retreat ‘bearing witness’ to the horrors of Auschwitz and Birkenau More than six million Jewish people were killed in the atrocities of the Holocaust. Others were also targeted, including Gyps ...

Advocates challenge the government to move farther in the attempt to protect young people from bullying violence The West Coast Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund is calling on the British Columbia government to implement a province ...

In late 2011, Pacifica Housing and Nanaimo Affordable Housing Society, in partnership with Columbian Centre Society and Haven Society, were selected as the successful non-profit providers to develop, manage and operate two new supportiv ...

Dedicated, passionate hip-hop artist learned to conquer his demons of addiction and poverty and shine through with music Hip-hop artist Matt Dunae—who performs as SirReal—has credited his involvement with music for helping him to overcom ...

People live in organized and structured environments to promote change, support a drug-free life in outside society Therapeutic communities are drug-free environments in which people with addictions and other problems can live together i ...

A study shows that nonabstinence-based housing does not enable alcohol use, but actually decreases it A controversial project using a housing-first approach with chronically alcoholic homeless people in Seattle has been shown to decrease ...

Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses, and there isn’t enough care, treatment, and support available to help A province-wide advocacy group working on behalf of adults with eating disorders recently met with the British Columbia ...

The all-powerful protector and provider stereotype pressures men to conform, powerless to face modern social challenges From first-ever university courses to academic conferences,an increasing interest in the concept of “men’s studies” i ...

While various religions may hold differing attitudes toward worldliness, they still have obligations to their neighbours The Central Vancouver Island Multicultural Society will host an  interfaith bridging dialogue called “My Faith, My C ...

Second annual dinner and musical gala is set for Thursday March 15, 2012 Thank you for your support! The second annual Mental Wellth dinner and musical gala is set for Thursday March 15, 2012. Funds raised are used in programs for Colum ...

George Anderson, in his first election, became the second African Canadian currently elected to municipal office in B.C. George Anderson made history in Nanaimo last November after he was elected to City Council following a gra ...

A Vancouver Island take on black history, identity, and the community celebrations that will mark the month Black History Month is an observance of the history of the African diaspora in a number of countries outside of Africa. Each year ...

The second annual Bell Let’s Talk Day was held on Wednesday, February 8, 2012.  Recognising that simply talking makes a significant impact in breaking down the stigma attached to mental health, the campaign encourages people to “start t ...

Estimates of people with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in the adult prison population are as high as 50 to 80 per cent Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is an umbrella term used to describe the range of disabilities that result fr ...

Jagrup Brar, nearing the end of his money, and living in SRO on the Downtown Eastside, is learning about poverty On May 25, 2011, Jagrup Brar, MLA for Surrey-Fleetwood, B.C., received a letter from a group called Raise the Rates entitled ...

C.G. Jung viewed dreams as offering a snapshot of our current mental condition, alerting us to problem areas Carl Gustav Jung was a psychiatrist and the founder of analytical psychology. He is considered the first modern psychiatrist to ...

"New buildings take capital and time," said Tom Grauman, executive director with the Columbia Centre Society. "The appeal of motels is that they are already contained units that just need refurbishing." Nanaimo city staff members could s ...

Government report says that over half of the elders in British Columbia care homes are given anti-psychotic medications The B.C. ministry of health released a report in December which revealed that just over half of all elders in reside ...

187 members and 11 campaigns later, SocialCoast.org has grown and is beginning to make its impact felt SocialCoast.org was established in spring 2011 to provide the Victoria region with an online hub—a social network—for community activi ...

John Lowman challenges government to cut hypocrisy and determine what prostitution law and policy should accomplish Prostitution is legal in Canada, while soliciting is not, exemplifying the hypocrisy present in our society’s responses t ...

Non-profit groups are named as operators for two new social housing projects in Nanaimo, but will controversy fade? Pacifica Housing and Nanaimo Affordable Housing Society, in partnership with Columbian Centre Society and Haven Society, ...

Ruth Ruth Stackhouse, a Mad Pride pioneer, is recognized by the City of Toronto for her outstanding work Ruth Ruth Stackhouse is a proud member of the psychiatric survivor community and a long-standing social and health activist. Her ext ...

The debate over violence, addiction and isolation in video gaming In September 2011, a middle-aged British man burst into the home of a fellow online computer gamer, aged 13 years, and “throttled” him, according to news reports. The shoc ...

Columbian Centre and Haven Society will jointly operate a facility at 1612 Dufferin Crescent Pacifica Housing and Nanaimo Affordable Housing Society, in partnership with Columbian Centre Society and Haven Society, have been selected as t ...

‘It’s different now,” a new social marketing campaign says, as warnings to ‘high-risk groups’ become yesterday’s news This year’s 2011 World AIDS Day campaign is about “getting to zero”—zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination, zero ...

Judy Graves’ next fight will be to ensure that homeless people actually get into the housing that is built for them The City of Vancouver’s advocate for homeless people, Judy Graves, recently warned the provincial government of the conse ...

On November 19th, 2011 the Columbian Centre Society hosted it's first Peers & Bugers evening at the Harewood Arm Pub. This fun evening included a Silent Auction and several  50/50 & meat draws. At the end of the day Columbian Centre ...

Linda Fossen says that she, and over eighty other children, suffered extreme abuse at Canada’s oldest Bible school Linda Fossen, a former student at the Prairie Bible Institute near Three Hills, Alberta, has alleged that she and dozens o ...

A generation’s future could include more crime, drug use, teen pregnancies, poor health and failure at school and work Could British Columbia be the very last province to enact a plan to fight poverty? That’s the question asked by BC Cam ...

Women are more likely to request counseling, but when men do seek help, they tend to have difficulty with the process Dr. Wray Pascoe, a family therapist and human systems consultant from Manitoba, says research has found that women requ ...

Occupy Nanaimo is staying put at its downtown location for now, as members hold talks with the city and police While big-city mayors and police are engaged in various stages of trying to remove Occupy protesters from their public spaces, ...

David Weekley’s “journey in from the wilderness” continues as he and others face institutional efforts to exclude them Rev. David Weekley stepped into the pulpit of the Epworth United Methodist Church in Portland, Oregon in 2009 to share ...

Art and mental health symposium tackles the deep-seated social ignorance and stigma accompanying mental illness Out of Mind—Into Creativity is a symposium co-sponsored by Artbeat, a Winnipeg gallery focused on mental health and art, and ...

Michael Christie’s powerful debut collection is inspired by his experiences working with people on the DTES The Beggar’s Garden, Michael Christie’s debut collection of nine linked stories, is dazzling, writes reviewer Candace Fertile in ...

Empathy, compassion, understanding, awareness—what happens when we try to put ourselves into others’ shoes? Empathy is a relatively common word, but it’s also a concept that is poorly understood. It’s sometimes confused with sympathy, pi ...

Colliers International recently presented a cheque for $10,000, the proceeds from the Colliers International Charity Golf Tournament held on September 9. Colliers International hosted its First Mid Island Annual Charity Golf Tournament o ...

Clubhouse members are working toward realizing their full potential, and now that includes broadcasting to a wider world Donald Berman UP (Urban Pardes) House is a clubhouse that helps adults living with a mental illness achieve greater ...

What if grief is a skill, in the same way that love is a skill, something that must be learned and cultivated and taught? With counseling and ceremony, Stephen Jenkinson has for a quarter century been guiding individuals, couples, families ...

The Insite decision could signal a fundamental change in the way Canadian society approaches and deals with addiction The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision of September 30, 2011 regarding the continuation of the Insite supervised inject ...

An online YIMBY toolkit from Vancouver’s Pivot Legal Society may be coming soon to a neighbourhood near you NIMBY is an acronym for “not in my backyard” used to describe a person who objects to something they perceive as unpleasant or po ...

Advocates fear the federal government’s strong emphasis on incarceration and punishment will push healing to the side The federal government’s emphasis on incarceration and punishment in response to crime has created concern that restora ...

PACE Society is pleased that the City of Vancouver has finally taken a position and steps toward a sex trade policy A new strategy on the sex trade developed by the City of Vancouver is intended to provide a comprehensive framework and ...

Opponents to a new housing project for teenage girls say it must exist outside the DTES, away from pimps, predators Atira Women’s Resource Society has opened an 18-unit single room accommodation facility for young women in the Downtown E ...

As Nanaimo social housing projects experience predictable, continuing opposition, citizens are invited down to the 7-10 The City of Nanaimo’s 2008 homelessness action plan estimated there were anywhere from two to three hundred individu ...

Andy Sibbald will walk to benefit Columbian Centre Society and its mental health programs on Saturday September 17 Andy Sibbald is a Nanaimo author with an interest in the Canadian arctic, mental health, addictions and satire. He’s been ...

A recent study confirms that one in four psychiatric patients in Ontario was restrained or isolated while in treatment The use of control interventions, including physical and mechanical restraints, acute control medications and seclusio ...

National event raises funds to provide support and services for Canadians living with HIV/AIDS in their communities The Scotiabank AIDS Walk for Life is a national awareness and fundraising event that takes place every year in communitie ...

Fighting Cancer presents overview of the ‘Gorter model’, the research behind it, and ways to strengthen natural immunity The Gorter Model is described as an integrative, nontoxic approach to cancer treatment that mobilizes the immune sys ...

Nanaimo hip hop artist SirReal will rap about loss this Sunday September 11th as he pays tribute to his brother, Nick The subject of suicide is no longer something that people keep hidden in the dark, ashamed to talk about. There are man ...

Mental health advocate Susan Inman says schizophrenia is invisible in Canada’s new mental health strategy In 2007, the Government of Canada established a group called the Mental Health Commission of Canada to develop a national mental he ...

Nanaimo Transitional Housing group opens two houses for homeless people in Nanaimo this week The Victoria Human Exchange Society has been successfully assisting people in need of housing for 19 years—and now the organization’s Nanaimo br ...

Rais Bhuiyan forgave the man who tried to kill him in a hate crime, then campaigned to save him from the death penalty Ten days after the September 11th attacks in the U.S., Texan Mark Stroman entered the gas station where Rais Bhuiyan w ...

Online grieving, whether on Facebook or other social media, is becoming the new normal...but does it actually help? After the campus shootings in the U.S. at Virginia Tech in 2007 and Northern Illinois University in 2008, hundreds of aff ...

As bicycling moves into the mainstream, it provides transportation, exercise, and recreation. But is it an identity? The bike lifestyle seems to have moved into the mainstream. Whether the surge in interest is related to the economy, the ...

The history of the Arctic is retold, from an Inuit perspective, and the project creates interest at an international conference A University of British Columbia research study was presented at a recent international conference in Shangha ...

Russel Ogden—and the Farewell Foundation—prepare plans for Canada’s first facility to offer legal assisted suicide Last November, sociology professor Russel Ogden offered to accompany a small group of Canadians to Switzerland's Dignitas ...

Small social enterprises exist—and even thrive—but do they really help to prevent the highs and lows of unstable funding? Social enterprises are business ventures operated by non-profit societies, charities, or co-operatives. The busines ...

Aden Ahmed settles into life in Nanaimo, far away from his Somalian origins, in a “country full of opportunities” Aden Ahmed is the second student brought to Nanaimo through the World University Service of Canada Student Refugee Program, ...

A patient-built wall in Toronto stands as a monument and an emotional manuscript, and stars in a play In 1860, patients at an Ontario psychiatric hospital helped to build a brick wall that would conceal them and their lives from the surr ...

Eric Harper’s musical journey began in Portugal, continued in Europe and L.A. and then led to Vancouver Island Award-winning musician and performer Eric Harper’s musical education began in Portugal and then continued in Europe and the U. ...

Anne Turner’s journey with art continues, as she opens a show at Studio 366 and turns herself ‘inside out’ Anne Turner became involved with art therapy in 2003 at Other Hand Studio in Parksville, B.C. Anne is an artist because she says s ...

Mehdi Naïmi says that good art therapy empowers people, strengthens relationships, brings peace of heart, and joy to life Long before there was “art therapy,“ artists explained themselves with their inner images as references to reality ...

Simon Walls has resumed his cross-Canada pilgrimage, a journey focused on music, meditation, and meaning After a winter’s pause, singer-songwriter Simon Walls has resumed his cross-Canada walk, setting out from Toronto at the end of May, ...

Eric Nordal launches SocialCoast.org to create an activist alliance that could help social, anti-poverty groups connect Eric Nordal has launched a Victoria-based online gathering place for community groups and organizations to share idea ...

Marika Swan’s work with Redwire Native Youth Media has shown her the importance of healing through expression Marika Swan is a Tla-o-qui-aht woman who was born out in the wilds of the west coast. Marika says she believes in a deeply prof ...

"Mental illness", diagnoses, and associated concepts are all social constructions, but the professions haven't yet recognized it, psychologist says Michael Walker is a psychologist working to implement the recovery model within the L ...

Multiple fingers point to a ‘debacle’ unfolding at the psychiatric emergency service in Victoria, British Columbia The Archie Courtnall Centre , also known as the Psychiatric Emergency Service (PES), is connected to the ER at Victoria’s ...

From the two-minute miracle to writing your memoirs—expressive writing holds the promise of health benefits Life Writing is an organic process—living and vital—with interrelated functions. In simple terms, it’s anything you write about y ...

Consensus about the value of recovery-based health systems and programs grows, but how are they best implemented? The goal of many mental health services and treatments is now recovery. This wasn’t always the case. In the past, mental he ...

Raise the Rates says MLAs accepting the challenge would be engaging in real action research and gain understanding Anti-poverty activists are challenging British Columbia’s elected provincial MLAs to take a challenge and live on $610 a m ...

Austin Mardon, Order of Canada recipient, is about to receive an honourary degree for his mental health awareness work In 1986, 24-year-old Austin Mardon was a junior field member with an international meteorite recovery expedition 170 m ...

Nanaimo artist and activist Wallace Malay will present about art, mental illness, and stigma at New York conference A conference for organizing resistance against psychiatry will be held June 20-21, 2011 at the City University of New Yor ...

Verbal, physical, and sexual harassment is reported by gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, and queer school students The terms “homophobia” and “transphobia” signify a great deal of unnecessary misery in the lives of Canadian students. ...

A group of people diagnosed with schizophrenia conducted research about housing and its impacts on mental health The struggle for housing stability is among the many challenges faced by people with schizophrenia. That struggle was the fo ...

Jean Oliver is working to highlight the gaps in mental health services by organizing an event that will ‘connect the dots’ Victoria resident Jean Oliver is planning an awareness event that will see 1,200 volunteers stand on white dots th ...

A look at the ethics of smoking bans in psychiatric facilities and the dynamics of a consumer-driven stop-smoking program  According to the World Health Report 2001, people with psychiatric illnesses are about twice as likely to smoke as ...

Judge notes overwhelming, undermining refusal of doctors to participate in Canada’s medical marijuana program On April 11, 2011, a ruling by an Ontario judge struck down Canada’s medical marijuana laws and the laws dealing with cannabis ...

A candid account of one person’s transgender experience, grounded in faith, pilgrimage, and hope “In from the Wilderness” is the story of a transgender man who has been an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church since 1984 and has ...

As the City works to revise its busking bylaw, buskers challenge perceptions and stereotypes about their craft “The City of Nanaimo is reviewing its street entertainer bylaws and considering changes to how and where buskers can perform. ...

A violent incident in Nanaimo has refocused attention on bullying, schools, parents and social media A Nanaimo woman has established a Facebook page called Bullying Awareness in Nanaimo in the aftermath of a high-profile incident involvi ...

Working in harmony with natural principles, method maximizes effect while minimizing the work involved “Permaculture is about creating a world where we can live indefinitely,” writes Javan Kerby Bernakevitch. The term was coined as a com ...

Community dental clinic in Nanaimo will provide dental care for people with low incomes A group called Community Organized Dental Clinic, working with Volunteer Nanaimo, is about to open a dental clinic for people in the city who aren’t ...

U.S. disclosure and a shocking Ontario abuse case bring new attention to a disturbingly common problem Recent high-profile cases of elder abuse have brought public attention to a problem that advocates say is disturbingly common—and unde ...

Report confirms that B.C. isn’t providing the most basic legal aid needs and calls for increased funding In June 2010, after years of government cutbacks to legal aid services in British Columbia and concerns about those most impacted, a ...

Support programs and peer networking help dads to become better fathers and stay in their kids’ lives At the age of 24, Brandon Hay discovered he was about to become a dad for the first time. He’d been raised by a single mother without t ...

Evalena Schwartz is a quirky, endearing character who brings a unique perspective on life, love, and art Evalena is a teenager who excels at art, dislikes math, wants to fall in love, has a mom and dad, a baby brother and a best friend, ...

Dr. Shao-Hua Lu on increased gambling exposure and how it could cause a spike in gambling addictions Gambling problems share many similarities with other addictive disorders. However, there are no visible signs or physical changes that w ...

Bipolar disorder is often characterized by periods of highly creative thoughts and behaviours Bipolar disorder (which was once called “manic depression”) is a condition characterized by repeated episodes of depression and abnormally elev ...

Jordan Rada and Frank Figueroa survived anti-gay bullying in school and now speak out to help others Pink Shirt Day was recently observed at schools in Nanaimo and across Canada. The now-annual event was inspired by Nova Scotia high scho ...

Local gallery appeals for funds so its programs for all people, including those with disabilities, are available Start With Art Nanaimo (SWAN) opened a studio across from the Nanaimo train station in 2009 called Studio 366. In the past y ...

Urban food production and sustainability challenge notions of private property and home ownership Dirk Becker’s Vancouver Island urban farm was ordered shut down last year by the District of Lantzville after a neighbour complained about ...

Patricia and Renato share cross-cultural experiences from Nanaimo in an online blog Patrícia Melo and Renato Coelho left Brazil for Nanaimo a few months ago to attend Vancouver Island University. The couple, who are former journalists, a ...

Church says it is part of the community—and it has been part of the community for a very long time Nanaimo’s St. Paul’s Anglican church hosted a special service of thanksgiving on January 23rd 2011, the first event of several planned for ...

Nanaimo Addiction Foundation works with youth to create a forum for learning, raising awareness Substance abuse among Canadian youth is a significant issue and can result in serious harm—including injury, overdose, car crashes and sexual ...

People using psychiatric medications can experience greater physical health problems Linda Chamberlain knows eight people with mental illness who have recently died and she says that medications and nutritional issues are to blame. “Some ...

Faith groups ask that Liberal and NDP leadership candidates explain homelessness, housing positions The Vancouver Interfaith Alliance to End Homelessness is calling on leadership candidates from B.C.’s NDP and Liberal parties to declare ...

Christian faith leaders endorse and sign letter to PM opposing plan to send more Canadians to prison Christian churches across Canada are being asked by an advocacy group to tell the federal Conservative government that they don’t want t ...

Mental illness hardly ever leads to violence, contrary to media distortions and general misunderstanding  Mental illnesses can take many forms, just as physical illnesses do—and are common—but mental illnesses are still feared and misund ...

What are the policy and cultural relations implications of inaccurate and constructed images? On Friday February 4th Vancouver Island University professor Keith Smith will give a talk called “On Black Hawks, Pontiacs, and Crazy Horse Mal ...

Anti-psychiatry activists respond to reports that use of ECT therapy is increasing U.S. regulators are meeting this week, considering whether to “downgrade the risk classification of electroshock devices, reinforcing what many psychiatri ...

Multicultural Society holds ‘living library’ of spirituality and faith to battle prejudice, promote understanding Central Vancouver Island Multicultural Society is set to host a series of events it calls a Living Library at libraries in ...

Treatment as prevention is a new—but underutilized— approach to preventing HIV/AIDS in B.C. Leading international HIV/AIDS expert and researcher Dr. Julio Montaner will be in Nanaimo next week to speak about the “Treatment as Prevention” ...

Nanaimo’s Unitarian Fellowship considers opening its extreme weather shelter every night to end of winter The extreme weather shelter for homeless people in Nanaimo may be open every night for the rest of the winter, after city council a ...

Quitting smoking is among the top ten in most lists of new year’s resolutions, but nicotine, the drug in cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, is one of the most addictive substances known. It is considered to be as addictive as cocaine or hero ...

“‘Tis the season that provokes difficult emotions. This can be the maddest, saddest, most stressful time of the year. On the streets and in the malls, you can tell the holidays are approaching not only by the music and the decorations, but ...

Coronation Street brought working class lives to telly and became an international phenomenon December 9th marks the 50th anniversary of the enduring TV program Coronation Street, one of the early examples of “kitchen sink drama” that em ...

Nanaimo’s shelter and homelessness strategies need improvement, critics say Extreme weather shelters in B.C. provide extra emergency shelter space during periods of winter weather when the health and safety of homeless individuals is thr ...

Vancouver Island’s regional AIDS organization continues its work amid change and challenge On September 17, 1985, five men sat around a kitchen table and decided it was time to meet the challenge posed by the AIDS epidemic on Vancouver I ...

But the weeks leading up to Christmas are vital for food banks, charities seeking public help The public believes that homelessness and poverty are two of the most pressing issues in Canada today. Nearly two-thirds of Canadians ranked po ...

Society’s response to those found not criminally responsible on account of a mental disorder A number of Canadians have recently been found not criminally responsible for their crimes due to mental disorder. Recent high-profile—and shock ...

How a father became delusional, killed his son, and now fights for awareness of the side effects of medications “David Carmichael lives with loss, sorrow and stigma like no other. In 2004, he strangled his 11-year-old son, Ian. While sev ...

Vancouver throws its support behind a federal bill that would protect transgendered Canadians Vancouver city councillor Ellen Woodsworth introduced a motion at the Tuesday November 16th Vancouver city council meeting, asking that the Cit ...

Why calls for British Columbia to take action to help its own kids are growing stronger BC has had the worst child poverty record of any province for seven consecutive years from 2002 through 2008—and advocates have been pushing the BC g ...

Donna Lynch visited 50 countries in 50 weeks, asking 50-something women about their lives Victoria author Donna Lynch has just written an account of her recent extensive travels in 50ish: A Journey to 50 Countries in 50 Weeks Interviewin ...

Reconnecting with Simon Walls—now in Montreal—about his walk across Canada Singer-songwriter Simon Walls’ travels began shortly after the loss of a friend to suicide. He spent seven months in the Katimavik program and then walked across ...

Is a ‘tea party’ brewing against Nanaimo’s progressive homelessness solution? A group of residents living in the Townsite Road area of Nanaimo are reportedly still fuming about plans to build units of housing to house homeless people in ...

A sapling from Amsterdam embodies symbol of nature, continuity, hope in times of hate While Anne Frank, her family, and others hid from Nazis in a secret annex in Amsterdam, the view of a giant chestnut tree near the building gave her no ...

On youth, education, and the Canadian future with Tchadas Leo A recent national survey has found that aboriginal teens aged 15-19 generally share the same life goals as other Canadian adolescents, such as good jobs, homes and families. B ...

Victoria art exhibition to include Parksville and Nanaimo artists inspired by struggles, recovery A juried art exhibition called One in Five opens friday October 15th in Victoria. It features works by a diverse group of artists from Vanc ...

Annual event highlights the importance of youth literacy with in-person poem-ing Poets across Canada will visit juvenile detention centres, alternative schools and youth centres October 4th to 9th, 2010, during the seventh annual Random ...

Tragedy at Rutgers University turns attention to privacy, homophobia, bullying issues The death by suicide last week of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi—which occurred after the online posting of private information—has been lin ...

Sandra Yuen MacKay’s book is a true story about her journey of recovery Sandra Yuen MacKay has written a book about her recovery from what she describes as an invisible disability—schizoaffective disorder—which includes a combination of ...

Don Fraser credits family, doctors, and medications for helping him with schizophrenia Donald Fraser was once enrolled in Surrey’s program for gifted students, active in sports, musically inclined, and popular. Years later, while at Univ ...

A protest that refuses to be silent about sexual violence--and reflects on what has happened “Take Back the Night” is an action created to enable large numbers of women to publicly express our anger at the sexual violence that goes on an ...

A roundtable discussion with three people who have experienced the system, first-hand Anti-psychiatry and mad pride movements have been questioning and assessing the role of psychiatry in health care and society—from the “patient’s” pers ...

Burden grows for individuals, families, and governments as agencies raise warning The recent World Alzheimer Report for 2010 says that the societal cost of dementia is not only already enormous, but that dementia is also significantly a ...

Social networking’s involvement in sexual assaults reveals dark side of technology Pictures of the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl at a weekend party east of Vancouver were circulated on the Internet via Facebook, police told reporters l ...

Vancouver Island Crisis Society works in local schools to bolster awareness, prevention The Vancouver Island Crisis Society has been “taking suicide prevention to the heart of Nanaimo-Ladysmith district secondary schools, showing student ...

Study looks at data to see where the B.C. government has increased social housing A new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has found that over the past five years British Columbia has seen an increase of about 1,500 uni ...

Idea for a café to give their children greater opportunities takes off in Cedar The Cedar Opportunities Cooperative was created four years ago, as a result of discussions among five families, to give their children with developmental dis ...

Short films for kids share values of taking care of mind, body, and the earth Devyn Brugge, a Nanaimo-based filmmaker, has teamed up with Bobbi (‘Aunti Bobbi’ the clown) Kurtz, a local performer, to create a series of YouTube films for k ...

Phebe Wolframe’s research into connections among madness, gender, and academia PhebeAnn Wolframe is a proud psychiatric survivor and an advocate for mad studies who is currently completing a PhD degree in English and Cultural Studies. Ph ...

Nanaimo events include the annual “Soles Remembering Souls” gathering for those bereaved by suicide In recognition of World Suicide Prevention Day 2010, The Central Vancouver Island Crisis Society is hosting its fifth annual community ga ...

Second annual fundraiser for BD and her stigma-stomping work will sell out fast The newly-formed Bipolar Disorder Society of B.C., a Victoria-based nonprofit dedicated to reducing the stigma of mental illness, will host its second annual ...

A look at the need for men’s groups and some upcoming programs for men on Vancouver Island Cowichan Men’s Centre works to “provide resources and support groups for men to better improve their relationship with themselves, their families, ...

Tulani Ackerman’s cross-B.C. trek nears a destination point, but will Victoria listen? On July 1st, 2010, the StEps movement hit the road to walk and bike throughout British Columbia in an effort to gather stories and ideas about challen ...

Lawrence Scanlan spent a year exploring big questions about doing good Can one person make a difference? When we write a cheque to a charity or volunteer at a food bank, we’re part of the solution—aren’t we? Author Lawrence Scanlan went ...

Gleaning is facing some challenges but new projects are moving the work forward Nanaimo has an abundance of fruit, nuts and vegetables growing in backyards and farmers fields throughout the region. Often gardeners and farmers grow more t ...

Jacqueline Windh’s quest to let First Nations kids speak about their lives A series of articles called “Native Youth Speak Out” is being presented at The Tyee.ca. A year in the making, the series was written by Jacqueline Windh, a writer ...

International AIDS conference calls for a focus on the human rights of people affected by HIV AIDS 2010, the international conference on HIV/AIDS occurring this week in Vienna, Austria, highlights the critical connection between human ri ...

Nicole Culos-Reed’s research shows that yoga is helpful to the survivors of breast cancer Recent research has found that the practice of hatha yoga has had a positive impact on the psychological health of women who have survived breast c ...

Harewood students take computer animation, job skills training in week-long camps From computer animation skills development for ages 11-15 to week-long job certification training for high school students, Harewood youth have been attend ...

International declaration calls on governments to base policing of illicit drugs on facts The Vienna Declaration is the official declaration of the 18th International AIDS Conference taking place in Vienna, Austria from July 18 to 23. T ...

Amnesty International report states Canada has not adequately protected Aboriginal rights Amnesty International’s recent report on The State of the World’s Human Rights  mentions, among several issues, the prevalence of violence against ...

Anti-psychiatry activists respond to media reports that use of ECT is increasing The Canadian Psychiatric Association recently issued its first position paper on electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) since 1992, saying that ECT “should remain ...

Robert Whitaker updates Mad in America, the revealing history of psychiatric treatment In Robert Whitaker’s Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, “one lone author bears moral witness ...

Simon Walls’ continues his cross-Canada pilgrimage of self-discovery and sharing Singer-songwriter Simon Walls’ travels began shortly after the loss of a friend to suicide. He spent seven months in the Katimavik program and then walked a ...

Tulani Ackerman increases discussion about the needs of children, youth, and education On July 1st, 2010, the StEps movement will hit the road to walk and bike throughout British Columbia in an effort to gather stories and ideas about ch ...

Yoga approach provides alternative tools for physical, emotional and mental wellness to at-risk youth A ‘Yoga Connect Project,’ offered at Nanaimo District Secondary School, has offered teens in an alternate program the opportunity to us ...

Autoethnography a powerful way to investigate personal & cultural issues, including trauma & illness Autoethnography is “research, writing, story, and method that connect the autobiographical and personal to the cultural, social, ...

The Farm at Cedar Woods offers farm worker and food preparation training, along with therapeutic horticulture Cedar Woods Farm—located in Cedar, B.C.—describes itself as a 28 acre healing environment; it offers horticultural therapy and ...

Looking at obsessive compulsive disorder: From arbitrariness of diagnosis to roles of recovering patient, the use of creative nonfiction in research Louise Tam attended PsychOUT: A Conference for Organizing Resistance Against Psychia ...

Police raids on compassion clubs providing medicinal marijuana are a reminder just how challenging change is going to be Police launched a major marijuana crackdown in Quebec last week, targeting 35 people in raids on marijuana compassio ...

A June 10th, 1935 meeting between two alcoholic men revolutionized treatment for a malady that had puzzled for centuries What eventually became known as Alcoholics Anonymous began in Akron, Ohio, on June 10th, 1935, as a former New York ...

Vancouver’s ‘downtown ambassadors’ are the target of a human rights complaint due to ‘hundreds of illegal removals’ On Monday, May 31, 2010, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal began hearing a human rights complaint made by Pivot Legal Societ ...

Homeless and underhoused Ontarians launch a legal challenge against the federal and provincial governments On Wednesday May 26, 2010 Tracy Heffernan, a staff lawyer for the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, launched a legal challenge ...

Young activists are tackling the disappearance of traditional aboriginal languages using a unique learning method “If our language dies, then our identity as a nation does,” according to Squamish Nation member Dustin Rivers. Dustin recen ...

Nanaimo’s Salvation Army might abandon its meal program, leaving a big gap in food security The Salvation Army’s Nanaimo director of services Rob Anderson recently told the Nanaimo Working Group on Homelessness that the organization face ...

Gay and queer men to look at health, wellness in Nanaimo A three-day-long gathering in Nanaimo on May 28-30 is designed for gay and queer men who want to do more than “just survive.” SHINE will bring together men for workshops, social ev ...

Schools appear to be taking up the leadership challenge In 2009, an adolescent health survey revealed that a quarter of gay and lesbian youths in Canada have attempted suicide at least once. And a total of 37% of gay and lesbian youngste ...

Bonnie Burstow’s anti-psychiatry activism and an attrition model for the termination of psychiatry For decades antipsychiatry activists have called for an end to psychiatry but the movement has offered little vision of how to bring about ...

An international movement comes together for a meeting in Toronto, and raises establishment hackles On May 7 and 8, 2010 over two hundred people gathered in Toronto for a conference focused on organizing resistance against psychiatry. Ps ...

AnxietyBC offers a workshop for parents and caregivers of anxious children, from ages 6 to 12 It is normal for children to have times in their lives when they worry, especially when there has been a major change or stressor, such as movi ...

Increased numbers push Nanaimo's 7-10 Club to a financial edge The 7-10 Club provides hot breakfasts and bagged lunches to poor and needy people in Nanaimo five days a week. The organization has weathered changes over the years and recen ...

Mark McLaughlin’s tireless campaign to prevent the nightmare of meth addiction Last week approximately 200 Nanaimo school pupils heard Mark McLaughlin’s “Be Crystal Clear” presentation, learning more about refusal skills and keeping them ...

New research details the impact of education on Aboriginal women A recent study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says that income inequity between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals is entirely eliminated for women with univer ...

A ‘graphic memoir’ about brothers’ shared experiences with schizophrenia Two of Clem Martini’s brothers have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. One is Ben, the youngest. The other is Olivier, or Liv, an artist. Olivier illustrates this g ...

New play a call to action and outreach to men to become allies in ending violence against women and children Eliza Gardiner and the Vancouver Island University Human Rights and International Solidarity Committee present Eve Ensler’s The ...

Simon Walls’ wanderings are a part of his search for deeper meaning Singer-songwriter Simon Walls’ travels began shortly after the loss of a friend to suicide. He spent seven months in the Katimavik program and then walked across Spain, ...

B.C. government cutbacks aimed at the poor and struggling Following its March 2nd budget, the BC government announced a number of cuts to health and medical services available to people receiving disability and income assistance. Jane Dy ...

Former top prison chaplain takes up new ministry Rev. Terry Richardson is the new pastor at Nanaimo’s Hope Lutheran Church. Before taking up his new position, he was the director general for chaplaincy and restorative justice with Correc ...

Self-management and community-based research take centre stage In 1997, while attending university, Michael Crane was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In recent years he has been working to try and find new and progressive ways to help o ...

How the father of orthomolecular psychiatry transformed the lives of thousands The late Dr. Abram Hoffer MD, PhD, was a Canadian orthomolecular psychiatrist and researcher. Dr. Hoffer and his co-workers were instrumental in the discovery ...

Paul Beard wonders why the school system isn't doing more about bullying Paul Beard considers himself to be a survivor of bullying. Now, 30 years later, the former Woodlands Secondary student wonders what’s changed—and asks, “Why is this ...

A local Nanaimo organization is about to launch a program for family members and friends of people experiencing mental illness A ten session education program for family and friends of people with serious and persistent mental illnesse ...

Susan Inman's memoir, After Her Brain Broke, Helping My Daughter Recover Her Sanity, has been recommended by leading organizations advocating for families coping with mental illnesses No parent ever wants to see their child develop a chr ...

Nanaimo’s Samantha Dubinsky finally admitted to hospital amid scarcity of appropriate care Bryan Dubinsky went public last month with the struggle he and his daughter Samantha were facing trying to find help from a provincial health syst ...

Students Fiona Sauder and Megan Carty create and perform a play about healthy eating, body image Two students from Ottawa’s Canterbury High School have created a theatre production based on overcoming unhealthy body image. The play, call ...

Nanaimo’s CHLY and 30 other Canadian community radio stations bring homelessness and poverty issues to the air Canada’s 8th annual national Homelessness Radio Marathon will broadcast live from Nanaimo and cities across Canada on Tuesday, ...

A grassroots awareness raiser is set for February 27, 2010 in Nanaimo Depression as an illness is a serious condition that brings about substantial changes in mood, behaviour, and thinking. It affects approximately 8% of adolescents. Man ...

The Mankind Project brings its 'warrior training' to Vancouver Island The “hero’s journey” of classical literature and myth has nearly disappeared in modern culture. The Mankind Project, through its New Warrior Training project, asks men ...

The bully, the bullied, and the role of the community Two recent deaths, by suicide, of bullied teens has again raised the issue of bullying in school settings. Ashkan Sultani, 15, of Lantzville, died January 12th. His parents have revea ...

Victoria tragedy, inquest puts spotlight on response to domestic violence in British Columbia The British Columbia government announced January 18th that it was taking immediate action to protect victims of domestic violence and ensure o ...

Métis Nation’s Olympic focus unfolds during the “Year of the Métis” Métis Nation British Columbia’s 2010 Olympic torch relay team, “Keeping It Riel”, recently ran with the Vancouver 2010 Olympic torch. The team’s slogan, a tribute to Lou ...

Turning to the experts who live successfully with BD Very little is known about how people successfully self-manage their bipolar disorder (BD). Information about people living successfully with BD isn’t nearly as easy to find, for examp ...

Red tents and hunger strike call for national strategy Vancouver-based Pivot Legal Society, the Citywide Housing Coalition and other partners announced the launch of their Olympic red tent campaign on Monday January 25th, calling on the ...

Simple design, low price just might be the key to providing affordable housing The Twelve Cubed Homes website says “welcome to the future” and “we do small in a big way” on its opening page. Ten cubed (ten cubic feet) and twelve cubed (t ...

How are affected families coping with the loss of this program for their children with autism? When the B.C. government announced changes to the way it funds autism support in the province, mothers of children with autism became activist ...

Dealing with family and individual challenges The author of a newly-updated Nursing Homes and Assisted Living guide aims to help people choose appropriate care and learn how to advocate for their loved ones in complex care environments. ...

Using stigma as a public health tool in the prevention of smoking “In recent years, addictions policy has stressed the need to counteract stigmatization in order to promote public health. However, through tobacco ‘denormal-ization’ strat ...

How men’s centres are, or aren’t, weathering the times Men’s centres in Nanaimo and Cowichan have experiences to share as 2010 gets underway. From funding crises to start-up challenges, organizers continue to agree on the importance of o ...

Poet Kit Pepper’s season in the Highlands of Guatemala Let Beauty Be: a Season in the Highlands, Guatemala is a cycle of sequential poems distilled from events and impressions Kit Pepper gained while volunteering in the northwestern high ...

Nanaimo students write, produce, and direct a high school survival film The trailer has been viewed over 22,000 times on YouTube...and the DVD is about to be released. For eleven months, a core group of students at Nanaimo’s Wellington S ...

Drama, dialogue, and some holiday favourites We share some scenes from two of Charles Dickens’ series of Christmas books, The Chimes and A Christmas Carol along with passages from Thomas Carlyle’s Past and Present in a brief investigatio ...

It’s not about the kitsch, it is about the connection Christmas is traditionally a season of joy, family reunions, friendship and generosity. So why do so many people get so tied up in knots about it all? For some, Christmastime can ...

Group opposes Salvation Army lunch fee and is asking questions about shelters A Nanaimo-based advocacy group, the Creative Awareness Collective, is challenging a recent fee attached to the lunches served at The Salvation Army’s New Hope ...

A food bank takes to the streets to raise awareness in a new way Some organizations seem to “sparkle with life” while others feel “dull and mechanical.” The art of engagement is about creating environments in which people thrive—even whe ...

Community co-operative gets ready for the future The Harewood Community Centre Cooperative met recently for its annual general meeting and to hear a talk about the changing face of Harewood. The HC3 cooperative says its close to bringing ...

Statistics show a large increase in the use of food banks by Canadians National statistics released last month show the largest year-over-year increase in food bank use on record—but some provinces have been harder hit than others by the ...

British Columbia has the highest child poverty in Canada…again…or as usual? British Columbia had the highest child poverty rate in Canada for the sixth year in a row in 2007, according to a child poverty report card released this week. T ...

Scouts Canada’s ambitious hopes for youth and the future Scouts Canada’s chief commissioner has announced an ambitious action plan designed to grow the organization and change perceptions about Scouts Canada being a “traditional, old-fas ...

The Road to God Knows is an original graphic novel about hope, friendship, mental illness, schizophrenia, and a young teenage girl coping with her life and coming of age in a broken but loving family “The Road to God Knows…” is ...

Concert of Island musicians is set to support Nanaimo’s 7-10 Club Island singer-songwriters Bobbi Schram, Jerry Paquette, Island Hue, Brian Hazelbower, and Alyse Paquette have gathered their considerable talents for a special fundraising ...

Karen Armstrong’s Charter for Compassion and the golden rule The Charter for Compassion is a cooperative effort to restore compassionate thinking and compassionate action to the centre of religious, moral and political life. The Charter ...

Focus on community impacts as City of Nanaimo declares awareness week The City of Nanaimo has proclaimed November 16 to 21, 2009 as “Nanaimo Sexual Abuse Awareness Week.” Sexual Abuse Resource Committee (SARC) spokesperson Jacqueline Gau ...

From addiction to recovery and back into academic life “Talk to Ryan Glover to understand the true value of education,” an article posted on Vancouver Island University’s website suggests. Ryan was once living in active addiction and ...

Local mental health, addictions council needs new members A local advocacy group working on behalf of people experiencing mental illness and addictions is looking to expand its membership. The Nanaimo Mental Health and Addictions Advi ...

The Reena Virk tragedy has become teaching for all of us In the years since their daughter, Reena Virk, was murdered in Victoria B.C., Suman and Manjit Virk have made their work against bullying a top priority. In November 2009 British C ...

Over the past year, a number of local organizations and groups have moved forward—facing and overcoming challenges and barriers—to step closer to their shared vision of helping some of Nanaimo’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens On ou ...

Transgender Canadians are coming out at younger ages than ever before, raising a range of questions about sensitive issues related to gender and identity.* We speak with Dr. Gail Knudson, medical director of the transgender health progra ...

An ordained minister tells his church that he is a transgendered man An ordained minister with over 27 years of service in the U.S. United Methodist Church shared with his congregation August 30th that he was born a girl and became a tra ...

Suzy Wedge's personal journey---becoming a trans-person for the first time Last New Year’s day, Suzy Wedge embraced femininity—differentiating it, as she says, from gender—becoming a trans-person for the first time. Her decision was foll ...

Do British Columbia's cuts to autism programs make any sense? Several mothers of children with autism have become activists—and are challenging the B.C. Liberal government’s recent decision to reallocate funding from an early intensive b ...

The prison suicide of Ashley Smith brings corrections deficiencies to light Ashley Smith was a troubled teen from Moncton, N.B. who had been assessed by child psychologists several times in her youth, and was in constant trouble with the ...

Security trumps mental health care in Canadian prisons Canada’s federal correctional investigator, Howard Sapers, has released a report detailing the Correctional Service of Canada’s ongoing dealings with mentally ill prisoners. The i ...

Literacy is considered to be a human right---and a tool of personal empowerment Literacy is considered by the United Nations to be a human right, a tool of personal empowerment and a means for social and human development. Educational op ...

The city's working group on homelessness has set funding priorities The Nanaimo Working Group on Homelessness recently made decisions regarding the use of federal funding for local homelessness initiatives. But there were too many applic ...

Andrea Paquette's personal awareness campaign might just go viral A self-described former ‘bad-ass’, Andrea Paquette only discovered at age 26 that she had bipolar disorder, a diagnosis that helped her understand much of what had been ha ...

Challenges boys face seem greater than ever before Challenges boys face today seem greater than ever before. Boys to Men Mentoring Network was created to guide boys aged 13-17 through their passage to manhood. The organization believes t ...

Focus on a major preventable cause of premature death Suicide is a leading cause of death for people worldwide, and one of the three leading causes of death for young people under 25. Suicide has biological, cultural, social and psycholo ...

Local island summer camp focuses on Métis youth and culture Fifteen Métis communities across British Columbia were funded this summer to create a variety of youth projects. The projects focused on life skills, health, and personal, cultu ...

Curtis Brick’s tragic death raises the issue of systemic racism Curtis Brick died last month after lying in the sun at a Vancouver park on one of the hottest days the city had seen all summer. Curtis Brick was a homeless aboriginal man. ...

The British Columbia Medical Association has called for a full continuum of care for addictions in B.C. A policy paper released earlier this year also recommends that addiction be officially recognized by government as a chronic illness. ...

Block Party underscores importance of connection, citizenship, locality On Saturday August 8th, 2009, members of Nanaimo’s Diver Lake Community, and other neighbours, were invited to a block party called Neighbours Being Neighbours. It w ...

Vancouver Island University's Clemente course preps for fall The Clemente Course in the Humanities, first offered at Bard College in the U.S., grew out of the disturbing fact that many low-income residents have had limited access to coll ...

Shawn Atleo becomes National Chief to the Assembly of First Nations Shawn Atleo, the hereditary chief of the Ahousaht nation on Vancouver Island, was elected July 23rd as National Chief of Canada’s Assembly of First Nations. The new chie ...

Tuff stuff out of the post-industrial ghost-lands of Buffalo, NY Filmmakers Marc Moscato and David Gracon are in Nanaimo on Wednesday July 22nd to present Tuff Stuff From the Buff, a collection of underground and defiantly independent vi ...

Two artists talk about mental illness, mental health, and the creative path The experimental link between creativity and mental illness is well-documented, and now a new study out of Hungary has discovered what could be a genetic link be ...

Paddling opens the door to culture, self awareness, and healthy lives Tribal Journeys is a high profile annual event for the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Youth on a Journey is a related program which helps to prepar ...

Homeless men share their experiences and hopes in a book club setting In the fall of 2007, outreach nurse Donna Kelly recognized that books had often become the common ground between her and her homeless patients. From her original idea, ...

Nanaimo poet's voice returns after a decade Kim Goldberg is an author, poet, photographer and art activist. She has penned five full-length books, over 2,000 articles, and various chapbooks. Her poetry has appeared in numerous magazines ...

Partnership underscores importance and awareness of local food security Former flower beds at Nanaimo’s city hall and at Beban Park have been turned into vegetable gardens to promote the local food movement. Three partners are involved i ...

A closer look at the term 'harm reduction' Despite the growth in the use of the term, the meaning, practice and implications of “harm reduction” are matters of some dispute, according to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Har ...

A high profile tragedy raises awareness Former Saskatchewan member of Parliament Dave Batters took his own life on June 29, 2009 after a lengthy battle with anxiety and depression. He was 39 years old. Mr. Batters left federal politics i ...

Navigating the space between brilliance and madness Will Hall is a 43-year-old man who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Doctors have prescribed medication for him. “But Hall would rather value his mentally extreme states than try t ...

British Columbia's hepatitis C challenge In British Columbia, the infection rate of hepatitis C is more than twice the national average. Rates in south and central Vancouver Island are even higher. The BC Centre for Disease Control estim ...

Safer crack cocaine use kits a harm reduction hard sell The smoking of crack cocaine is a relatively neglected public health problem in Canada, in comparison with injection drug use. Crack smoking involves particular risks and harms, inc ...

Manitoba's Liberal leader makes the case for a mental health bill of rights Jon Gerrard, leader of the Liberal party in Manitoba, introduced a bill on December 2, 2008 in the Manitoba Legislature to provide a bill of rights for citizens ...

Vancouver's homelessness advocate Judy Graves pays a visit to Nanaimo's homeless people Judy Graves, Coordinator for Vancouver’s Tenant Assistance Program, is a long-time, passionate advocate for the homeless. She began the Vancouver Hom ...

Wayne Cho's incredible journey Wayne Cho began a run across Canada last May 23, 2008 in St. John’s, Newfoundland to raise awareness for anxiety and depression, which affect a significant portion of the population but are often misunderst ...

Telephone-based mental health coaching service helps people with anxiety, depression Bounce Back is a program designed to help people experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety that may arise from stress or other life circumstances. ...

Programs and services from Anxiety B.C. respond to disorders AnxietyBC is a nonprofit organization working to increase awareness about anxiety disorders; promote education of the general public, affected persons, and health care provider ...

Wayne Cho's awareness run for anxiety and depression reaches Vancouver Island Wayne Cho began a run across Canada last May 23, 2008 in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The purpose of his run is “to raise awareness for anxiety and depression, wh ...

Haven Society responds to need Half of all Canadian women have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16 and every year in Canada, up to 360,000 children are exposed to domestic violence. 58,486 ...

Why Victoria activists are offering needle exchange in a 'no-go zone' Harm Reduction Victoria launched what it calls a “guerilla needle exchange” in downtown Victoria in the middle of a so-called “no-go zone”—an area that has been off-li ...

Alzheimer's disease care and support As people age, a decline in thinking abilities and memory is expected, but when that decline is much faster than normal, the consequences can be devastating to those people and their loved ones. Such ...

Artist and author Leef Evans: “I have to tell people” Leef Evans, an author and artist, experienced a severe bout of depression six years ago that resulted in hospitalization and the loss of apartment, car, and virtually all connection wit ...

Peter McGee has been traveling across B.C. and North America, training and presenting about how the program can engage youth in the digital age Crime Stoppers began in 1976 when a detective in New Mexico appealed to the public with a vid ...

Made-in-Nanaimo approach frames busking as a downtown safety and security issue Arts and culture...or safety and security? Nanaimo’s Street Entertainer’s Bylaw was enacted in 2003 to control altercations between panhandlers and street en ...

An upcoming performance of Canadian playwright George F. Walker’s “Criminal Genius” will be accompanied by an interactive panel discussion involving at-risk youth and members of local service organizations ACTing on Social Accessibility: ...

Sacred Bentwood Box used at national events of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission Ladysmith artist Luke Marston has created a symbol of truth and healing—a sacred Bentwood Box to be used at the seven national events of Canada’s ...

Green Party leader Elizabeth May on the state of Canadian politics “Canadians are waking up from our long political slumber to realize that there will not be change unless we insist upon it. We have a presidential-style prime minister wi ...

Experiential workshop for students and frontline workers provides a personal glimpse into mental health problems Pat Deegan is a clinical psychologist and also a psychiatric survivor, having first been diagnosed with schizophrenia as a t ...

In the third of a three-week series, From Compassion to Action, we talk with some of the volunteers who are making a difference in our community about their experiences, thoughts, and observations. We’re joined by Theatre BC volunteer Jerem ...

A novel theory of mental disorders “Two scientists, drawing on their own powers of observation and a creative reading of recent genetic findings, have published a sweeping theory of brain development that would change the way mental diso ...

A conversation about health and wellness, from the yogic perspective Swami Maheshananda Saraswati is an eminent yoga teacher who has devoted nearly two decades to learning and teaching the philosophical and practical aspects of Yoga and ...

In the second of a three-week series, From Compassion to Action, we talk with some of the volunteers who are making a difference in our community about their experiences, thoughts, and observations. We’re joined by Canadian Red Cross volunt ...

A look at men's health and wellness The men’s movement, and its North American rise in the 1990s, is closely linked with poet Robert Bly’s book Iron John. Bly said in 1991 that he'd at first thought, “My male side was developed, and my f ...

In the first of a three-week series, From Compassion to Action, we talk with some of the volunteers who are making a difference in our community about their experiences, thoughts, and observations. We’re joined by long-time Morrell Nature S ...

As national volunteer week approaches, we focus on volunteerism...and speak with organizers and some of the volunteers in our community. What is the reality? What are the hopes? What are the trends? We’re joined by Volunteer Nanaimo exec ...

Looking at food, shelter, and supports in Nanaimo Local frontline services are under increasing demand or are experiencing specific challenges. We’ve convened a frontline services roundtable to explore and update recent events ranging fr ...

Witty, irreverent, compassionate, wise Celebrated as a bible for a new generation of women, The Vagina Monologues has been performed in cities across North America and at hundreds of college and university campuses. It has also inspired ...

Harewood School was built in 1914, an imposing and highly visible building—and landmark—in Nanaimo. Recent discussions about the now-closed school’s potential as a community centre building have become bogged down in bureaucratic red tap ...

"Most addictive drug ever" is also considered the most destructive It has been described as a ‘hideously destructive substance’…and ‘the most addictive drug in the world’. Methamphetamine is a drug with high potential for widespread abus ...

Thousands of Islanders will dine out to fight HIV/AIDS on March 12, 2009. Donations from their food bills will be given to AIDS Vancouver Island. We speak with Andrea Langlois of AIDS Vancouver Island, and representatives from a number of p ...

Three interviews focused on drugs, from the world-wide war on drugs to the local gangs selling illegal substances Interviews with former provincial court judge Jerry Paradis, senator Larry Campbell, and street gangs expert Michael Chettl ...

Highlights from local coverage of the 7th annual Canadian homelessness radio marathon On Monday Nanaimo’s CHLY 101.7 FM joined nearly forty radio stations across Canada and over one hundred radio stations in the U.S. in broadcasting cont ...

Open Minds, Open Windows brings hope to the stage A Nanaimo-based organization has been working to reduce the stigma and prejudice surrounding people with mental health issues. Open Minds Open Windows Society provides a range of supporti ...

Concurrent disorders are more widespread than we realize—and in combination they make for unique challenges Concurrent disorders—the combination of a mental illness and substance use disorder—are much more widespread than many people rea ...

A new study published by the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS has shown that forcing prostitutes out of populated areas and into isolated locations increases violence and the spread of HIV. The most vulnerable were women who had been ...

A documentary film about homelessness, based on a provincial tour by NDP MLA David Chudnovsky, was screened at a presentation earlier this week in Nanaimo. We speak with NDP MLA David Chudnovsky. 054_feb_12_2009_sm   ...

Downtown Victoria’s Clean & Safe Committee is providing a safe needle disposal toolkit to share information about the disposal of needles and drug paraphernalia. We speak with Andrea Langlois from AIDS Vancouver Island. 052_feb_12_20 ...

Radio stations across North America, including CHLY, join 14-hour marathons focused on homelessness and poverty on Mon., Feb. 23. We speak with Jeremy Alderson, the U.S. founder of the Homelessness Marathon, about the event. 053_feb_12_2 ...

A new project providing mentorship for children with special needs and their families has been launched in Nanaimo. We speak with Geri Sera from Nanaimo Unique Kids about a program designed for caregivers. 051_feb_12_2009_sm ...

“The Nanaimo filmmaker who exposed police ‘provocateurs’ to the world premieres his feature film about the Security Prosperity Partnership at Vancouver Island University. Paul Manly’s latest film You, Me, and the S.P.P: Trading Democracy fo ...

This year’s B.C. provincial election will include a referendum on whether or not B.C. citizens want to adopt a new electoral system based on the concept of a “single transferable vote”. In our first look at the upcoming provincial election ...

February 1-7, 2009 is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week in Canada Our society's preoccupation with body image is reflected in the fact that, at any given time, 70% of women and 35% of men are dieting. More seriously, a 1993 Statist ...

A new program designed to help Aboriginal patients access and navigate their way through Vancouver Coastal health launched on January 20th. Aboriginal Patient Navigators will provide referral, advocacy and support to patients to ensure acce ...

“The federal Conservatives will spend an extra $1.4 billion on Aboriginal issues—mostly to help Canada’s impoverished native reserves—in the budget that is covering everything from sea ports to railways. Aboriginal leaders, accustomed over ...

Victoria’s popular Movie Monday film series presents a weekend of films and forums about homelessness this Saturday, Sunday and Monday (January 24-26th). It begins Saturday evening at 7 p.m. with special guest Judy Graves, Vancouver’s city ...

In September 2008 the Canadian Mental Health Association purchased the Balmoral Hotel building on Haliburton Street in Nanaimo for the purposes of providing supportive housing and outreach. Christina Martens, CMHA’s Mid-Island Branch execut ...

Wallace Malay is a Nanaimo artist and a student at Vancouver Island University. There was a time, however, when Wallace was homeless, ill, and in active addiction. Wallace Malay joins us in the studio to share his personal story of exper ...

Anxiety disorders are surprisingly common in children and teenagers, affecting approximately 10 per cent of them. Unfortunately, 80 per cent of anxiety disorders in this age group go untreated. What are anxiety disorders? Why do they occ ...

In what is considered one of the most significant disability initiatives since the International Year of the Disabled in 1981, Canada’s federal government has launched a new tax-deferred savings plan for people living with a disability. ...

Vancouver housing activist Am Johal is coordinating a hunger strike to shame the federal government into reinstituting a national housing program. Canadians from coast to coast can participate by spending a week on a liquid-only diet. The h ...

We devote our full program this week to a review of some of the stories that made the news in 2008...month by month...from the perspective of social issues as they unfolded...primarily in the Nanaimo region. We also look forward to what 200 ...

Oscar Clemotte is both a professor of philosophy and a classical guitarist. He joins us in the studio for a talk about philosophy, ethics, and music. And, he brings a guitar along to share some music with us. 035_dec_18_2008_sm  Image: ...

It’s not uncommon for people with conditions like arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, chronic pain, etc. to feel anxious or depressed. Bounce Back: Reclaim your Health is a new self-help program designed to help people living with chronic p ...

A cold snap and expected record cold weather has put Nanaimo’s extreme weather response program into operation. First Unitarian Fellowship has become the first local church to join the downtown Salvation Army in providing overnight shelter ...

Food banks are bringing new meaning to the phrase “run on the bank” as demand for food support rises while—in some areas—donations aren’t rising. We talk about food banks and their campaigns and what they are seeing on the frontlines. We ...

Nanaimo's Old City Quarter eyes a new neighbour Nanaimo Old City Quarter businesses are crying “foul” after they were surprised by news that Nanaimo’s needle exchange program will be relocated to their neighbourhood...on January 1st. ...

Yoga’s physical and mental practices and disciplines are increasingly popular and being adopted by many. We speak with yoga teachers Kim Leduc and Kelly Murphy about yoga and its potential benefit and/or therapeutic use in helping with addi ...

The BC supreme court decision that struck down Victoria’s bylaws preventing homeless people from camping in the city’s parks created a storm of controversy and discussion...and renewed the homelessness dilemma in the eyes of many municipal ...

December is almost here, and Christmas and holiday planning and activities are already underway. This time of year is commonly described as stressful and challenging...along with the more positive descriptions, of course. What are some o ...

Nearly 5,000 people joined an online Facebook campaign which urged members to “get them steel toes ready” for a day of booting last week. The website appears to have been inspired by an episode of the cartoon South Park, in which a young ch ...

Danny Dolen lives on a boat in the Nanaimo Harbour. He joins us to share his concerns related to new Nanaimo Port Authority rules for live-aboards and the potential impacts on people living on their boats in the Nanaimo and Ladysmith areas ...

Francophone students bike for a cause Nanaimo high school student Joshua Cheng is on the road with other B.C. francophone students to raise funds and awareness for homelessness. He’s Nanaimo’s first participant in the second year of a bi ...

The Victoria ruling and its impacts “I’m sleeping in a tent-city tonight,” David Johnson declared in an email from Victoria. Earlier that week, a BC supreme court ruling struck down Victoria bylaws making it illegal for homeless people t ...

Rick joined the Canadian army right out of high school. He was a dad at age 19 and a paratrooper at 20. He served with the coalition forces during Gulf War I in Kuwait and was a veteran of war by the time he turned 21. But “something was ...