Impact of Your Donation

CMHA BC Projects Supporting Children and Youth

Lorne Fraser Educational Bursaries
Late adolescence is a time when most symptoms of mental illness first emerge—this at a time when many youth are immersed in higher learning. The Lorne Fraser fund offers simple and practical help to young adults, and adults whose post-secondary dreams were put on hold by mental illness. Bursaries and scholarships in this program cover the costs of course fees and supplies. But the need is far greater than the fund can currently support. An average of 50 deserving candidates are turned away each year.
>>$10,000 would help 10 young adults with mental illness return to college or university.

CMHA Mental Health High School Curriculum
CMHA’s national office has recently released a new curriculum guide for teachers and other school professionals in Canada to use in their Grade 9-12 classes. The learning resource, recommended by Curriculum Services Canada, and founded on a whole-school approach to improving health, builds students’ —and teachers’—skills and knowledge of mental health issues.
>>$30,000 would support CMHA BC and 10 CMHA branches in BC to be trained to deliver the curriculum, or would support the training of local educators to deliver the curriculum in 10 school districts.

Beyond the Blues
Beyond the Blues: Depression Anxiety Education and Screening Day is an annual mental health awareness and early intervention campaign that supports local communities to organize engaging education and screening events around depression, anxiety, suicide and risky drinking. Nearly 46,000 people have been helped over the past 15 years. Young people are a major focus of the campaign. Last year, half of those screened at dozens of school and campus sites, in rural and urban communities, were under the age of 25.
>>$15,000 would provide 50,000 resources targeted to children and young people at 60 sites.

For My Health!
In partnership with ImpactBC, For My Health! is a health screening and education event integrating physical and mental health. Participants learn about their overall health in a fun and interactive way by cycling through stations covering issues from blood pressure, mood, waist girth, stress and resilience, to cholesterol, anxiety and glucose. The program has been successfully applied to adults in workplace settings and, because of its high engagement, has the potential to help younger adults.
>>$75,000 would adapt the program for use on campuses on wellness days and test it on one campus.

Healthy Minds, Healthy Campuses
Through Healthy Minds Healthy Campuses, CMHA BC brings together students, faculty, counsellors and student support staff at BC postsecondary institutions who are passionate about improving student mental health, reducing suicide, and problem substance use on campuses. The community does this through collaborative local action, student leadership, student-run projects, and research to improve campus policies.
>>$30,000 would support research into the specific needs of immigrant, refugee and international students, distance education students, mature students, and GLBT students on campuses.

Strongest Families
The Strongest Families Program (formerly Family Help) has been designed to help families learn to deal with childhood problems in the comfort and privacy of their homes. Strongest Families is a distance treatment service that provides up-to-date care that helps parents and children learn to deal with the challenges of common childhood problems. The goal is to treat problems early to prevent them from getting worse. Education and treatment is provided by trained coaches through telephone contact, written handbooks, videotapes, and audiotapes.

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