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 the Bell Let’s Talk mental health initiative, took to the podium at a recent Montreal conference about collaboration in mental health care, she talked about stigma, mental health and tweets. She also talked about some of the many projects being funded by the ambitious (and very successful) Let’s Talk campaigns.

For example, the Community Fund provides grants of $5,000 to $50,000 to organizations, hospitals and agencies focused on improving access to mental health care and making a positive impact in their communities from coast-to-coast-to-coast. And Bell has donated $1 million to the University of British Columbia to establish the Bell Youth Mental Health Impact Project which will allow UBC researchers develop new ways to reach youth in need of mental health supports, using technology.

Preference for funding from the Community Fund is given to capacity building projects aimed at creating or expanding programs that provide front-line support and/or reduce the stigma for those impacted by mental health issues.

Calls, texts, tweets, and conversation

What does this have to do with tweets? The awareness-raising centrepiece of the Let’s Talk initiative is the annual Bell Let’s Talk Dayaimed at “opening the national conversation”; that means working with mental health partners to help get the message out and break down the stigma surrounding mental health. The company encourages people to phone and text one another on the annual Let’s Talk Day, and to engage in a dialogue about mental health on the Let’s Talk web portal.

And for every long distance call and text message sent by Bell customers and for every tweet and share of the Bell Facebook image, Bell adds 5 cents to its commitment to mental health across the country. This is in addition to the company’s initial $50 million investment. Last year, Canadians tweeted in support of mental health like never before, with 1.6 million tweets in 2013—up from 26,000 in 2012.

In 2014 Bell Let’s Talk Day will be held on January 28th.

Recognition of philanthropic leadership

Bell is Canada’s largest communications company—and the Let’s Talk initiative is the largest-ever corporate commitment to Canadian mental health to date. Between the launch of Let’s Talk in 2010, and June 2013, Bell has committed more than $62 million to the cause.

The funds involved, along with the corporate leadership and commitment to the cause of mental health, have attracted the attention of philanthropists and groups across the country. Bell was named the recipient of the international 2012 Freeman Philanthropic Services Award for Outstanding Corporation by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and the company also received the 2011 AFP Greater Toronto Chapter Philanthropy Award for Outstanding Corporation.

The initiative’s four pillars

The Bell Let’s Talk initiative was launched in September 2010 as a five-year, $50 million program tackling the pervasive health challenge of mental illness. It’s built on four key action pillars—anti-stigma, care and access, research, and workplace best practices—and it’s been providing significant funding for leading mental health hospitals and grassroots organizations, driving new workplace initiatives across corporate Canada, and reducing the stigma around mental illness through the Bell Let’s Talk campaign (led by national spokesperson and Canadian Olympian Clara Hughes).

Leadership provided by Mary Deacon

Mary Deacon, the former President and CEO of Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Foundation, is chair and leader of the Bell Let’s Talk initiative. Deacon is a long-time advocate on behalf of mental health issues. She brings personal experience with her to the role. Her brother David died by suicide at age 25 while studying medicine at the University of Toronto. Mary shared her personal story with CTV News:

“It was devastating to my family for so many reasons on so many levels,” she says. “First of all, we knew nothing about depression. I don’t know that the word depression had ever crossed our minds, or the word mental illness had ever crossed our lips. It was just completely foreign to us as a family. We had no comprehension of what it was, anything about it.”

The family learned that David had suffered in silence for years, and kept his depression hidden from everyone because of shame, and over fears that his illness would derail his career as a doctor.

Not long after David’s death, Deacon learned something else: she, too, suffers from depression.  She says she was “reeling and suffering” following David’s death, a sadness made even worse by raging hormones because she had given birth just weeks before.  At first she tried to deny that she was depressed, but finally opted to try both medication and therapy.

“I realized once I started to feel better, that I must have been depressed my whole life,” she says.  [source: CTV]

Some years later, tragedy struck again. In 2003, her brother Ted took his own life at the age of 39. Ted had struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) from when he was a young boy, but at the time there were no treatments for the condition.  As a result of Ted’s death, Mary says, “my passion was redoubled for the issue of mental health.” [source: CTV]

In Montreal, at a Collaborative Mental Health Care conference, Mary Deacon told delegates that, “We are all affected, one way or another.” And she added that mental illnesses (and mental health issues) are “pervasive, underfunded, and stigmatized.”

We speak with Mary Deacon.

492_july_18_2013_sm    Left-click to listen; right-click to save.

RELATED | Website: Bell Let’s Talk | CTV News: Let’s Talk campaign chair turns tragedy into message of hope (Feb. 7, 2012) | The Globe and Mail: ‘Let’s Talk’ campaign a boost for mental health and Bell (Feb. 14, 2013) | The Globe and Mail: Why Bell chose to champion mental health (Feb. 14, 2013) |

video

Steve Harvey, dean of the John Molson School of Business and Mary Deacon, chair of the Bell Let’s Talk initiative, discuss mental health. The event, held on April 18, 2013, was part of the Concordia University-Globe and Mail national conversation series on aging well.