STAND UP FOR MENTAL HEALTH BRINGS THE LAUGHTER. MAKES SMH DAYS ON CAMPUS AN ANNUAL MUST-GO-TO EVENT
Stand Up For Mental Health (SMH) is passionate about facilitating an open, frank, compassionate, inclusive and lively national discussion about mental illness on Campus.
1 IN 5 Canadians will personally deal with a mental illness in their lifetime. Nearly 100% will be affected collaterally through family, friends, co-workers, neighbours and others. Students are a huge part of that demographic.
SMH performed at the University of British Columbia (UBC), the Abbotsford and Chilliwack Campuses of University of the Fraser Valley (UFV), University of Victoria (UVic) and Camosun College Lansdowne Campus (streamed live to the Inter Urban campus) in October of 2009. Our shows coincided with MIAW-National Mental Illness Awareness Week and other mental health initiatives on these campuses. We discuss Youth Depression, Suicide, Eating Disorders and other critical mental health issues.
SMH did a lunchtime show on all campuses for Students, Faculty and Staff. We also did evening show at UBC and UVic for the Community at large.
The response from Students, Faculty and Staff was nothing short of fantastic. We return to all of the BC Campuses in October 2010 and add Simon Fraser University (SFU), Thompson River University (TRU), University of Northern BC (UNBC), Vancouver Community College (VCC), Douglas College, North Island College (NIC) and Vancouver Island University (VIU).
We have been invited to Dalhousie University in Halifax, McGill University in Montreal and University of Toronto in 2010. We have also been invited to the University of Rochester in New York in the October. There is also interest at UCLA, Stanford, Dartmouth, Harvard and Emory Universities in the US.
SMH Days on Campus offers a unique platform upon which schools across Canada can share their mental health strategies, challenges and research.
Chris Balmer, Chair of the Camosun College Counseling and Learning Skills and Writing Centre wrote:
"I became aware of Stand Up for Mental Health (SMH) while attending a keynote presentation delivered by David Granirer at the 2009 Applied and Therapeutic Humour Conference, in Las Vegas Nevada. David's presentation featured how dramatically the comic training had transformed the lives of persons suffering extreme mental health challenges. The presentation was inspiring and received a standing ovation from conference delegates.
As an organizer for the first conference focusing on best practices for BC post-secondary counselors held in June 2009 at the University of Victoria, we brought in Stand Up for Mental Health and the presentation was inspiring, and drew broad acclaim on our conference feedback sheets. At that event I discussed the possibility of our College being included in a BC post-secondary institutional tour that SMH was planning for October 2009. In a remarkably efficient and effective manner, arrangements were made for an October 22nd lunch hour presentation to a packed auditorium. The comic presentations entertained, inspired, and succeeded in the goal of reducing stereotyping and stigma. Feedback from staff, students, faculty and administrators was overwhelmingly positive. This was a perfect all-inclusive activity to highlight our college-wide mental health check-up.
This is a unique activity in so many ways. The comics, who have clearly struggled for many years with mental health issues, have discovered a therapeutic outlet. They learn valuable empowerment skills, engage in positive lifestyle changes, and literally transcend the barriers and hopelessness by telling their life stories through "comic lines". The connection and insight gained by the audience about an otherwise marginalized population is both powerful and palpable. SMH have helped bring the conversation about mental health into the mainstream at Camosun.
Based upon the extremely positive feedback to their performance, we are already in the process of planning a return engagement with SMH in 2010.
In summary, this is very valuable program that provides a unique therapeutic opportunity for a marginalized and misunderstood segment of our society to illustrate their life's challenges in a way that engages audiences, enlisting compassion, understanding and advocacy. They open people's hearts and minds to the notion that each of us can do more to accept, include, and support those with mental health challenges and that we all need to continue this valuable conversation. I wholeheartedly endorse this program! "
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