People First Media program archive
Header

Mental health, citizenship, and inclusion II

June 9th, 2011 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (0 Comments)

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 miles from the South Pole. While his findings contributed to the advancement of science, the extreme hardships of the expedition left him mentally and physically disabled. Austin was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Since then, Austin has bravely survived many setbacks by evoking an indomitable will to make a contribution. He is recognized as a leader in advancing understanding and support for people with mental illness. (more…)

, , , ,

Stigma awareness, art to travel

June 9th, 2011 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on Stigma awareness, art to travel)

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 York. PsychOUT provides a forum for psychiatric survivors, mad people, activists, radical professionals, artists, scholars and students from around the world to share experiences of organizing against psychiatry. Collective resistance against the theories and interventions of institutional psychiatry has intensified over recent years. (more…)

, , , , , ,

Mental health, citizenship, and inclusion

June 2nd, 2011 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on Mental health, citizenship, and inclusion)

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 focus of a participatory action research project led by professor Barbara Schneider at the University of Calgary.

Participatory research involves members of a community group in meaningful participation in all stages of the research process, including developing the research question, gathering the data, analyzing the data, and disseminating and using the results. (more…)

, , , , ,

Campaign to connect the dots

June 2nd, 2011 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (0 Comments)

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 that stretch from the B.C. Legislature building to the Royal Jubilee Hospital on September 10th, 2011. She wants to raise awareness of gaps in mental health services within the capital region—on World Suicide Prevention Day. Jean borrowed the idea from a rally held in New Brunswick last December.

Jean struggled for years to get mental health help for herself and her children. She told the Victoria Times Colonist that to say that services are inadequate is being kind…“the services don’t exist.” (more…)

, , ,

On smoking and mental illness

May 26th, 2011 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on On smoking and mental illness)

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 others; those with schizophrenia and alcohol dependence are particularly likely to be heavy smokers, with rates as high as 86%. A 2000 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that individuals with psychiatric illnesses had a smoking rate of 41% compared with 22.5% in the general population, and estimated that 44% of all cigarettes smoked in the United States are consumed by people with psychiatric illnesses. (more…)

, , ,

Investigating BD and creativity

March 17th, 2011 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on Investigating BD and creativity)

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 elevated mood. Although bipolar disorder has been associated with disability and poor quality of life, it is also, for some people, associated with positive aspects of life, such as increased creativity. Over half a million Canadians have BD. (more…)

, ,