Monday, April 04, 2005

Racial Discrimination and Mental Health: Racialized and Aboriginal Communities (Canada) Article by the Director for Corporate Diversity at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health at the Ontario Human Rights Commission web site, called to our attention by CMHA/Ontario's Mental Health Notes - "Many studies confirm that one of the cumulative outcomes of social inequities, systemic racial discrimination, sexism, poverty and marginalization of Aboriginal peoples and members of racialized groups (including immigrants and refugees) is the debilitating impact on the mental health prospects for members of these communities, including the multidimensional impact of intersections of poverty, race, gender and sexual orientation..."  
  

BC Launches New Program to Improve Police Response during Mental Health Emergencies (Canada) CMHA press release in Adobe Acrobat format - " he provincial office of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) has just launched a program to improve responses by police to people with mental illness in crisis. The six-month pilot project, called "Building Capacity: Mental Health and Police Project" (BC:MHAPP), will involve six communities across BC: Cranbrook, Williams Lake, Nanaimo, Vancouver, Richmond and Delta. According to a CMHA BC study, 30% of people with mental illness have contact with police while accessing mental health services for the first time, thereby making the police the de facto 'first responders.' "