Mental Health Care for All: Let's Make it a Reality

Oct. 10 is World Mental Health Day. It's an occasion to raise awareness about mental health issues around the world and mobilize efforts in support of mental health. The day also provides an opportunity for nurses and other health-care workers to work together to ensure mental health supports are accessible to all people.

BCNU cares about our members' mental health. Recently, we partnered with Embodying Your Curriculum (EYC) to create health care-oriented personal resilience resources titled, Embodying Your Practice (EYP).

In honour of World Mental Health Day 2021, the union and EYC are hosting a special personal resilience webinar on Friday, Oct. 8 from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. In keeping with this year's Mental Health Day theme, Mental Health in an Unequal World, the webinar will explore how historical, intergenerational, and racialized trauma can be held in the body and introduce ways to work with these forms of trauma when they arise in the workplace.

You'll also learn about:

• The relationship between trauma in general and racialized and intergenerational trauma, and how these play out in the workplace.
• Skills you can practise to maintain healthy boundaries along with learning new ways of listening and engaging in conversations about race and intersectional oppression.

All members can register here. 

In addition to the Oct. 8 personal resilience webinar, BCNU is offering the following EYP resources:

• Introduction to Embodying Your Practice,  a self-paced, on-demand personal resilience curriculum that introduces practices to help regulate the nervous system and help participants metabolize feelings of overwhelm and discover a sense of calm. Register here. 
• Summer 2021 EYP webinar recordings that introduce foundational skills of trauma-informed practice to help settle the nervous system and process overwhelm that may be held in the body. Watch here in BCNU's Member Portal.

What is World Mental Health Day?

In 1992 the World Federation for Mental Health created the day to raise awareness of mental health issues and advocate for programs and care options to help people sustain and strengthen their mental health. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act and can influence how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important in all stages of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood and retirement. Our state of mental health is represented by a continuum of healthy to illness and where we sit on that continuum may fluctuate on a given day and/or as we navigate life events.

Resources

INFOGRAPHIC: the Mental Health Continuum. 

It is important to check in with yourself and notice how you are feeling or reacting to interactions. When you are healthy or just noticing change take time to build a mental health support toolkit that works for you. Toolkits may include connecting with friends, journaling, exercising, meditation, personal wellness or behaviour programs, reaching out to Employee and Family Assistance Programs, counselling, health care visits or more. If you feel that you are struggling with mental health injury or illness, please know you are not alone and that supports are available to you.

Additionally, the province of BC and Canadian Mental Health Association have created additional virtual supports to help strengthen mental health. Check out:

• Canadian Mental Health Association BounceBack® Program here. 
• BC supports for health-care workers here.
• Other virtual supports here. 

Need Help?

• Call 1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433) if you are feeling distress or despair including thoughts of suicide.
• Call KUU-US Crisis Line Society at 1-800-588-8717 for culturally aware crisis support for Indigenous peoples in BC.
• Call 310-Mental Health, (301-6789, no area code necessary) for emotional support, information, resources specific to mental health.
• Call Alcohol & Drug Information Referral Service (ADIRS) 1-800-663-1441 to find resources and support for substance use.

#WorldMentalHealthDay