The Canadian Mental Health Association recognizes that sexual exploitation and abuse by mental health service providers takes place. The Association also recognizes that without fail such exploitation and abuse are harmful to mental health consumers. Evidence has come from anecdotal reports, complaints to professional associations, and more recently from surveys of the general public and […]Continue readingSexual Exploitation and Abuse by Mental Health Service Providers
Public Policy
Women and Work
The Canadian Mental Health Association believes that social inequality has damaging consequences for women’s mental well-being. Inequalities continue to exist for Canadian women with respect to family life, education, training, employment, and decision-making roles in society. Although a small proportion of women are benefiting from policies designed to increase access to professional occupations that command […]Continue readingWomen and Work
Employment: Incentives and Accommodations
The Canadian Mental Health Association, through research and experience, has proved that people who experience mental illness can be employed successfully. Persons with mental illness can and do hold responsible jobs and make significant contributions in their work, home and leisure lives. However, not all persons who could be employed are working because they, potential […]Continue readingEmployment: Incentives and Accommodations
Advocacy and Persons with Long-Term Mental Health Problems
Since its inception over seventy years ago, the Canadian Mental Health Association has been a unique advocate for the chronically mentally ill. During the past decade, CMHA has expanded its mandate from promoting service delivery to active support of self-help initiatives and the community resource base. The protection of individual rights in therapeutic programs and […]Continue readingAdvocacy and Persons with Long-Term Mental Health Problems
Women and Mental Health
Social inequality has damaging consequences for the mental and emotional well-being of women. Throughout their lives, women may be considered “at risk” of developing emotional problems due to a host of social factors. Limited participation in public life, restricted decision-making, devalued role expectations, poverty, violence and sexual abuse undermine the potential for emotional well-being. Social […]Continue readingWomen and Mental Health
Women and Health Care
A number of studies on women’s health have demonstrated strong links between health status and socioeconomic factors affecting women. Limited participation in public life, restricted decision-making, devalued role expectations, poverty, violence and sexual abuse encumber the potential for mental well-being. Social and economic stresses, coupled with the inequitable burdens imposed by role expectations, often have […]Continue readingWomen and Health Care
Consumer Involvement
The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) is a strong supporter of the need for a strong consumer voice in all aspects of mental illness/mental health policy, planning, and delivery – from participation to decision-making to choice. As articulated in CMHA’s Framework for Support model, consumers – that is, people who have had direct experience with […]Continue readingConsumer Involvement
Mental Health Services
Mental illness is a major health issue for society and for government. Discrimination persists in the organization and provision of hospital care and community health care for people with mental illness. The Canadian Mental Health Association is working actively to maintain and to improve a health care system in which the principles of universal access, […]Continue readingMental Health Services
Income Security and Productivity
Income security is a key determinant of health related to the mental health of communities. Canadian and international studies support the role income security plays in defining the socio-economic status and its relation to health outcomes. Those representing higher social and economic strata are more likely to experience more positive states of (mental) health and […]Continue readingIncome Security and Productivity
Community Committal
For some time now, the CMHA has struggled with the issue of community committal or compulsory community treatment. Proposed as an alternative or a supplement to involuntary hospitalization, community committal has strong support from family groups and the psychiatric profession. Many consumer groups are as strongly opposed. Views on community committal are influenced by personal […]Continue readingCommunity Committal