Life Unscripted - Stories of Mental Health and Addiction

No one likes to have cold feet and most of us take for granted that we can buy warm socks and be comfortable during the winter. But so many people who are homeless or struggling financially to keep food on the table aren’t able to buy basic necessities like socks. Kids are going to school without warm socks or sometimes no socks at all.  SocksforChange.ca founder Sam Baio saw the need for warm soc...

Feed Ontario has released it’s annual Hunger Report. Five million people visited foods banks across the province in the past year. One in 6 identified as having a job.   Sadly,  food bank visits have increased at the same time people’s ability to give has declined.   On the show today are Carolyn Stewart CEO of Feed Ontario and Christine Clark-Lafleur CEO of Port Cares and part of Feed Niagara.  

A decision on whether to offer Medical Assistaince in Dying – or MaiD -  to people living with a mental illness in Canada has  been delayed again until March of 2024. It’s such a complex issue and there’s a real division in the mental health community over whether MaiD should be expanded to include mental health. Some psychiatrists are firmly against it and others are firmly in favour. We mostly h...

National Addiction Awareness Week (Nov. 10-25, 2023) is spearheaded by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction.  Inspiration, Innovation and Inclusion is this year's focus. CCSA has released a report on the cost of substance use and addiction. It found that in 2020, substance use in Canada cost $49.1 billion, largely from alcohol and tobacco. Opioid deaths accounted for $7 billion...

This year the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is focusing it’s no one left behind fundraising campaign on substance use and addiction.  Opioid use and deaths are still the biggest crisis with more 7300 deaths in Canada in 2022. But use of stimulants like methamphetamine, also know as crystal meth, is also increasing.  Mixed drug toxicity, for example meth with an opioid, is a major contribu...

Important news from Pathstone Mental Health. Pathstone is now the direct access point for all publicly funded mental health services in Niagara for children aged birth-18 years.  It's taking over from Contact Niagara so parents and youth now have a single intake number to call for all mental health services in the region. Please call or e-mail Pathstone directly at 905-688-6850 ext. 8 or inta...

The media plays an important role in forming public opinion and jouranists and their media outlets need to change the way they report on violence against women.   Gillian’s Place - a shelter for women in Niagara - has put together a free online course on Responsible Media Reporting of Gender-Based Violence and Gendered Issues. The course dives into how much words matter and the ways media should r...

Talking with someone who knows what you're going through can make all the difference when you're in hospital for treatment of a mental illness. Faith Rockburne, who is a Peer Support worker at St. Michaels Hospital in Toronto, finds personal healing for herself as well knowing that she is helping someone recover. Faith was on the show last week to talk about her lifelong battle with trea...

Faith Rockburne has lived with mental illness most of her life from anorexia as a teenager to severe depression as an adult.   Her depression and anxiety got worse as she got older until she stopped going out of her house and eventually lost her job.  Faith’s road to recovery has been long and difficult - anti-depressants didn’t  work and after trying electro confulsive therapy – or ECT - she was...

Eram Chhogala is an emergency room and trauma nurse at a hospital in Toronto. She says more and more people are coming to emergency rooms for help for mental health or substance use. She believes it's because there is so much financial stress – the cost of living or maybe losing a job – and they have no other place to go for help.

Losing a pet can be very hard but adults expect it when their pet gets to a certain age and we know it’s ok to be sad, even cry.  Children feel the loss in a very different way and as parents we want to protect them from sadness and may feel it’s best to buffer the sadness with euphemisms, like "he’s gone to sleep" or "she’s gone away", leaving the child wondering when their pe...

Gambling is known as the hidden addiction. Many people play at online gaming sites, go to casinos or maybe they start by betting with friends or buying lottery tickets. For most people it's just some fun and doesn't affect their daily life. But for some the obession can lead to losing their family, friends and even their job. Community and Addiction Services of Niagara – or CASON - provi...

Last spring, New Brunswick became the first province to require teachers to have parental consent to use a child’s preferred name or pronoun in the classroom  if they are under the age of 16. It’s a complete change from the previous policy that made if mandatory for teachers to use preferred names and pronouns for all children. Now Saskatchewan has implemented a similar policy, Ontario’s Education...

Every time I watch the news or read it online I think about how happy I am that I’m older. But I worry about my 15 year old nephew and my nieces and nephews who are now having children of their own. We’re used to wildfires in Canada but I don’t think there’s ever been a time when there have been so many raging at the same time and buring their way through communities and many people had to leave t...

Canadian Mental Health Association Niagara is focused on providing mental health supports to adults in the Niagara Region. On top of mental counselling CMHA connects people to with housing and to other services they may need to lead a healthy life.  It also provides crisis help: providing safe beds for people who need a short term place to stay mobile mental health support through it’s Crisis Outr...

The documentary Insanity – The mental health crisis by Canadian documentary film maker Wendy Hill-Tout tells the story of her brother Bruce – who was schizophrenic – and disappeared 25 years ago. Hill-Tout weaves her poignant family story with the mental health crisis we’re facing today.  Steve Borisenko, whose son Jacob died of an  overdose, talks about the documentary and the website savemylife....

The Willow Arts Community is an arts + peer support organization dedicated to reducing barriers and providing opportunities for adult artists and creatives with lived and living experience of mental illness/substance use disorder in Niagara. The Willow is a non-profit offering free classes in many artistic mediums, including painting, writing and music. It uses the arts as an agent of social chang...

The Valhalla Project Niagara is a free non-profit charity for veterans and first responders with post traumatic stress disorder -PTSD.  Valhalla’s flagship is it’s Learn to Live program which is a 5 day residential respite program based on peer support. Co-founder Graham Bettes says L2L is not a replacement for therapy but is a chance for people to share their experiences and learn some life skill...

Kids can express anger in many ways – sometimes it’s a temper tantrum or getting angry at home or at school. A lot of this can be managed by the family, others may need some therapy, but some children need more intentsive anger management skills.  Pathstone Mental Health has a live-in program at its Rotary House that helps kids find ways to deal with their anger. Christine Harvey heads up the prog...

Achieving real equity, diversity and inclusion in business is more than policies. But how do businesses assess and take action on EDI? Dr. Tapo Chimbganda helps companies and organizations across North Amerca identify and implement EDI actions and policies.  While racism and gender are often the focus,  she says people with physical disabilities can be overlooked because of the need to create a wo...

Pride month 2023 is in full swing .  Ten years ago there were about a dozen people gathering to Montebello Park in St. Catharines to celebrate. This weekend thousands were in the park. Pride flags are flying at all municipalties around Niagara, schools and most businesses are recognizing the 2SLGBTQ+ community.  Pride Niagara Chair Enzo De Ditivitiis talks with Janice Arnoldi on Life Unscripted ab...

Birchway Niagara (formerly Women's Place) has amalgamated its shelters into one to provide more and better services in South Niagara for women and childeren experiencing domestic abuse. Executive Director Jennifer Gauthier says shelter services are growing as gender violence continues to increase. Her dream is to come to work one day and find she doesn't have a job because gender abuse d...

Does society divide people who are homeless into good and bad? Most people would say no, but sub-consciously many of us see a dividing line. The "good" homeless are people who lost their home and are new to living without a roof - maybe they lost their job and can't afford rent. Then there's the "bad" - the people who are living rough because of mental illness, addict...

The Blue Guardian app uses AI to help kids identify how they are feeling. Founder Emmanuel Akindelay had some bad experiences with mental health as a child, including teachers who just brushed him off rather than offering help.  But while AI like ChatGPT uses publicly available intelligence and knowledge to make information hyper available to anyone, Blue Guardian only tracks emotional intelligenc...