Meaningful Involvement of Consumers Award

Health and Wellness

MICA HALL OF FAME2013

This compilation honours the winners of the 2013 Meaningful Involvement of Consumers Awards. It tells the story of hope and recovery from mental illness.

MICAs celebrate the meaningful involvement of mental health consumers in society. The awards honour consumers, families, clinicians, and groups who support and respect the expertise of individuals who experience a mental illness.

MICAs are given by the Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness, through its Mental Health, Children’s Services, and Addictions Branch. The awards are given in partnership with the branch’s Consumer, Family, and Community Involvement Working Group. The participation of the working group, whose members have experiential knowledge of mental illness, helps make the MICA program meaningful.

Two kinds of MICAs are awarded:

Consumer, Family & Friend Award – This is for mental health consumers, families, and friends.

Consumer Engagement Award – This is for mental health clinicians, clinical teams, and community groups.

Visit the MICA Hall of Fame online at bit.ly/17RQDsa to learn about more MICA winners. While you’re there, check out the nomination information, to nominate a future MICA winner.

LAURA BURKE has a growing reputation across Canada as a gifted playwright, actress, drama therapist, and keynote speaker. As a champion for people with mental health challenges, she has won many provincial and national awards.

Perhaps Laura’s best-known success is her play Heartwood. It pinpoints stigma around mental illness, but “in a much broader context of discrimination within society,” Laura says. She describes the play, which shares her experience of schizophrenia, as a hopeful piece that promotes the human experience. Heartwood is currently being performed across Nova Scotia upon request.

As we strive for hope and recovery from mental illness, we must avoid pushing people to the margins. “We need to bring in everyone’s voice,” Laura says, including the voices of people who haven’t recovered in the same way as others, or who have intractable illnesses.

The elements of journey and discovery in recovery are central to Laura’s work. She has helped develop the programs Your Recovery Journey and From Recovery to Discovery.

Activities such as art therapy, mindfulness, and meditation are excellent supports for people to understand and accept where they are on the recovery journey. Laura says, “To accept where they are is the starting point. To accept that there’s nothing wrong with any point on the spectrum of human experience.”

As a drama therapist, Laura combines creative therapy models with peer support models. “I really shy away from any model where there’s an expert and a learner, because I don’t think that’s a helpful part of the healing process.” Shared experience has an equalizing effect. She says, “Peer support is proven to be as effective as clinical work in a lot of ways. In different ways, but equally as useful.”

Peer support was praised by her clients as the most important part of the therapeutic work they did together. Laura says clients highlighted “the fact that I had that equal footing with them. And that was how they felt they benefited.”

Laura Burke

1 2

SUZANNE ANNESTY-UDLE is the owner of The Bean Bank Café, in Sydney. Through her coffee shop, she employs people in the local community, including those who experience mental health challenges.

This is no small thing. Up to 90 per cent of people with serious mental illnesses are unemployed. As an employer, Suzanne contributes to the economic and social well-being of her staff. This is why Suzanne’s community nominated her for a MICA Consumer Engagement Award.

Suzanne describes how, as a small business owner, she is able to create a supportive work environment, which she finds best. Suzanne says, “I don’t just want to run a business and make a living. I want to make a difference.”

She talks about how she is able to draw from the strengths of her employees, “and everyone has strengths,” she adds. Suzanne says that the opportunity to contribute to a team effort, work alongside other people, and be around all the people who come into the coffee shop helps people to open up.

A home, a job, and a friend. These three are often said to be what a person needs to recover from a mental illness. Suzanne’s coffee shop supports all three.

Suzanne expresses delight in being able to support members of her community: “I was able to tap into the opportunity to give some people a chance to work.”

She encourages other businesses to offer supportive employment to people with disabilities and to discover the skills and training the employees bring. “I think that everybody should contribute,” she says. She adds, “You realize that not everyone is perfect, but even if you’re not, you still deserve a chance to be who you are, and everyone has something good to offer.”

Suzanne’s motto is a quote from Mother Teresa:

We cannot do great things on this earth. We can only do small things with great love.

Suzanne Annesty-Udle

Suzanne Annesty-Udle Laura Burke

THE MISSING LINT COOPERATIVE board of directors and employees together have won a MICA Consumer Engagement Award.

The Missing Lint operated in Sydney from 2005 to 2012 as the first social enterprise in Cape Breton that hired people living with a mental illness. Work assignments rewarded the efforts and talents of people with lived experience. With The Missing Lint, over 80 people gained employment, earning real wages totalling over $400,000. Employees also participated in decision making; over 50 per cent of the board members had lived experience of mental health challenges.

The work at The Missing Lint was diverse, including assignments in construction, maintenance, and the arts. The group published a volume of creative writing, Burning Fog: Clarity Through Creativity, and the magazine men-tal’-i-ty: Supporting Creativity and Perspective. The Missing Lint took its name from an early business plan for a laundromat.

Employee Byron MacDonald talks about a point of pride. In one assignment, staff produced high-voltage electrical load

Left to right: Colleen MacKenzie, Shirley Antle-Kelly, Teena Marie Fancey, Byron MacDonald, David Crowe, and Lynn Rossiter Missing: Terri Dennis, Fred Deveaux, Neeta Kumar-Britten, Diane McGrath, and Mervyn Poole

centres for emergency generators. These complex devices were assembled from over 160 components. Byron explains that, in the last batch of testing, 99 per cent passed quality inspection, and 1 per cent failed due to faulty components. Shirley Antle-Kelly, another employee, adds that some of their load centres were sent to Afghanistan, where repairs are not readily available, “so they had to be top-notch.”

Supportive work environments are critical to the well-being of businesses and employees. Shirley encourages employers to rethink their model of operation, for example, by allowing flexible hours. She explains, “I know there’s been occasions where I’ve had to come in late, but I stayed late to make up the time. I wasn’t ‘skiving off,’ as they say.”

Board member and employee David Crowe affirms that, given the proper supports, people with mental illness can live a life “as fully, and as full of accomplishment, as anybody.” He heartens employers to hire more people with disabilities: “Do it. Surprise yourself. Change your mind about what you think mental illness means in an individual.”

3 4

The CROSSROADS ACES are the youth group of Crossroads Clubhouse in Sydney. The ACES get their name for being Active, Creative, Emergent, and Strong.

A couple of years ago, when the ACES wanted to share positive messages about mental health with local youth, they envisioned building a new media centre. To get the resources, they applied for a grant through the Bell Let’s Talk Community Fund. The group now has that new media center, stocked with computer hardware and software, lighting equipment, and a high-definition camera.

Recently, the ACES have been training on the equipment and putting it to use. They have produced a short anti-stigma video that was broadcast at the local hockey arena during a game of the Screaming Eagles. The ACES have also covered an event and produced a DVD featuring comedians from Stand Up for Mental Health.

The ACES will continue their outreach and anti-stigma work through the local community college and schools. They plan to combine photos, videos, and testimonials in their live presentations. This is sure to be a powerful combination.

Kyle Cantwell, an ACE, talks about the message they want to share with youth about mental health concerns they might be facing: “You’re not alone. You’re not the only person feeling that way. There’s no reason to be ashamed—it’s a common thing.”

ACE William (Will) McKenzie says, “As long as I know I can help people by getting the message out, that’s all that matters to me. If I can get that message out to younger people, that they don’t have to be afraid of living with a mental illness, I’m doing my job.”

All ACES and Clubhouse members are encouraged to train with and use the equipment. For example, they can learn photo editing, video scripting, and using the computers.

Crossroads ACES invites people to meet them and tour the media centre. To contact the ACES, visit http://bit.ly/18jnLrF online or call (902)567-7961.

DONNA METHOT is a tireless champion for the rights of people living with a mental illness, and a lifeline for their family members and caring friends. For many years, Donna has volunteered to help develop programs for families and friends, who often feel isolated and desperate. Donna says, “I am inspired by the great need of families for education and support to get through such tumultuous times. When my daughter was diagnosed in 2000, we were very fortunate to have been given what we needed as a family.… I wanted to give back.”

In 2008, Donna established the HRM Chapter of the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia (SSNS). She was also elected its first president. “I am very proud of the success of the HRM Chapter of the SSNS because it is a place where families come together to learn and share their experiences in a safe, supportive environment,” she says.

Also in 2008, Donna initiated and chaired the first HRM SSNS fundraising Walk for Recovery. To date, this event has raised over $100,000 for the SSNS.

Some of Donna’s current work focuses on developing collaboration within circles of care to improve recovery outcomes. At Capital Health, she sits on several mental health Quality Team committees and working groups that promote collaboration among consumers, family members, and health-care providers. Through mental health clinics in HRM, Donna has helped deliver educational modules, including Strengthening Families Together, and Families Matter.

An advocate herself, Donna says, “Families need to take care of themselves so they can be supportive. They need to educate themselves about the illness, build a support network, and fight stigma by talking about mental illness.”

Donna is a firm believer in positive outcomes for people who experience a mental illness. She says, “Family members and friends need to hold on to hope and know that, with support and effective treatment, recovery is expected.”

CROSSROADS ACES

5 6

Donna Methot

Left to right: Representing the Crossroads ACES, William McKenzie and Kyle Cantwell

Donna Methot

Meaningful Involvement of Consumers Award

Health and Wellness

http://novascotia.ca/dhw/mental-health/

Produced by Healing Tree Communications

Content: Carol LamarchePhotography: Trevor KennedyDesign: Aaron Bihari