CMHA National Pamphlet List	Mental Illness in the Family
Children And Attention Deficit Disorders	Mental Illness in the Family
Children And Depression	Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Children And Difficult Behavior	Phobias and Panic Disorder
Children And Family Break-up	Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Children And Self-Esteem	PostPartum Depression
Children And the Stress of Parenting	Preventing Suicide
Coping with Unemployment	Reflections on Youth Suicide
Depression and Manic Depression	Schizophrenia
Depression and the Workplace	Seasonal Affective Disorder
Eating Disorders	Separation and Divorce
Feeling Angry?	Stress
Grief After Suicide	The Myths of Mental Illness
Grieving	Understanding Anxiety Disorders
Growing Older	Violence and Mental Illness
Mental Health For Life	When a Young Person is Suicidal
Mental Illness	You and Your Aging Parents

Click on this link http://www.marketingisland.com/CMHA/pages/product.asp?id=2682 to access the CMHA National pamphlets.  You can download pdf versions at no cost that you can save and print for yourself.

CMHA/PEI Division Pamphlet/Resource List

• CMHA/PEI Division - Overview Information
• PEI Helping Tree
• PEI Helping Tree (French)
• Consumer and Family Support
• Fitzroy Centre Clubhouse (Charlottetown)
• I’m Thumbody
• With Hope in Mind
• Notre Dame Place Clubhouse (Summerside)
• Signals of Suicide
• Grief After Suicide
• Hope Centre Clubhouse (Alberton)

For a more complete summary of the resources available from our libraries in Charlottetown or Summerside, please click on one of the following links.

Division Resources (pdf file)

Summerside Resources (pdf file)

Summerside Resources (MSWord file)

Public Presentations

CMHA offers a variety of Powerpoint presentations that are suitable for delivery in a 'lunch and learn' format.  These presentations can take from 45 minutes to 90 minutes to deliver (depending on the time available) and we try to tailor the content to the needs of the organization.  Over the past three years our presentations have been delivered to Island businesses, government departments (municipal, provincial and federal), school staff, service clubs and organizations plus many other community groups (including youth groups). 

There is no charge for these presentations; however, we ask that organizations consider making a small donation to CMHA to help offset our preparation and delivery costs.  Any donation made is voluntary and the inability of a group to make a donation does not preclude them from being considered for a presentation.

Our presentations are for anyone interested in learning more about mental health and mental illness issues in today's world.  Some of our topics include stress management, mental illnesses (particularly depression and post-partum depression), mental health strategies (finding balance in one's life), etc. For further information about our topics or to arrange for a presentation at your place of business, please contact CMHA at one of the following locations:

• Alberton: 853-4180
• Charlottetown: 628-1648 or 1-800-682-1648
• Summerside: 436-7399

Fighting Stigma

This article was prepared by Nora Underwood for Canadian Health Network.
Nora Underwood is a journalist living in Toronto.

Date published: October 15, 2005

It's incredible to think, as you look around that wedding reception or board meeting or high-school reunion, that one in five of the people there has or will have a mental illness at some point in their lives. Mood disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders, substance abuse problems, anxiety, bipolar depression-any of these and other mental illnesses can affect people of all ages, ethnic backgrounds, and income levels.

We read frequent stories about mental illness, we see depictions of people suffering from mental illness, 20 percent of us will experience it firsthand-and yet there is still so much stigma attached to these diseases that, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association almost half of sufferers never get treatment. For some people, the stigma is so great that they cannot even tell family and friends what they are going through.  And yet, none of us is immune.

Considering so many people have such difficulty opening up to people close to them, it's no wonder that there are real fears about being stigmatized in the workplace. In fact, mental illness tends to strike people in their late teens and early twenties-often just at the earliest point of their careers, when they are least likely to ask for help or special accommodation. And the cost of mental illness in the workplace is enormous: 30 to 40 per cent of disability claims are for mental illness, and the losses amount to about $33 billion a year, not including treatment and health care-plus the unknowable costs in lost productivity by those people who suffer in silence.

The reality of mental illness in the workplace and the impact-positive or negative-employers have on those who are dealing with it was the focus of this year's Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health, a group of senior business leaders and former federal finance minister Michael Wilson (whose son, Cameron, committed suicide in 1995). Speakers at an April meeting spoke of the importance to the person and the financial benefit to the company of hanging on to and helping employees through mental illness. "We're all at risk," stated Dr John Frank, scientific director of the Institute of Population and Public Health at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. "There's not much room for stigma." Dealing with mental illness is no different than coping with any other form of disability, he added. "We're just worse at it."

A far-reaching impact:
The word stigma means a mark indicating that something is not normal-a mark of disgrace. Those who are stigmatized because of mental illness, or anything else, are victims of discrimination-and the stigmatization not only intensifies their suffering by causing feelings of rejection and isolation but it also negatively affects treatment outcome. In a 2001 survey conducted by CMHA and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, two-thirds of respondents claimed to have suffered from depression or anxiety themselves or were close to someone who had and one-third of them said they believed other people's perceptions of them would change if they found out.

Another report, "Mental Illnesses in Canada," stated that stigma and discrimination "force people to remain quiet about their mental illnesses, often causing them to delay seeking health care, avoid following through with recommended treatment, and avoid sharing their concerns with family, friends, co-workers, employers, health service providers and others in the community." It also contained the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health's assertion that preventing discrimination against the mentally ill was a most important step toward improved mental health for Canadians.

Communication and flexibility are key:
According to the Canadian Psychiatric Association, people with a mental illness suffer more stigmatization in the workplace than those with other disabilities, and are more likely to come up against long-term disability and under/unemployment. "Many employers and employees have unwarranted fears and see persons with psychiatric disabilities as unskilled, unproductive, unreliable, violent or unable to handle workplace pressures," says a CPA pamphlet on "Mental Illness and Work."

But changing that environment takes time and the efforts of both employees and employers. It helps to remember that employers are better off financially-not to mention ethically-investing in a valued employee by supporting him or her through treatment. That may mean making some (likely) temporary changes to working hours or work conditions but the payoff following successful treatment is a happier, healthier, more productive employee. Employers set the tone for the workplace. If reasonable accommodations are made willingly to help an employee through a difficult time, that sends a powerful and important message to the rest of the staff. And it also goes a long way to helping the employee feel supported-a great help in the treatment process.

How employers can help?
Mental Health Works, a research project involving the voluntary sector, government and business, outlines all the rights and responsibilities of both employees suffering from mental health problems and their employers.  It also offers tips for employers on how to help an employee return to work from a mental-health leave. This is when leading by example is most important. The onus is on employers to create an environment that is harassment-free and supportive for the returning employee. Often, if an employer takes the initiative and learns more about the employee's illness it will help him or her convey to other employees the importance of not stigmatizing the returning employee. (First, however, an employer should discuss how much information the returning employee wants disclosed to colleagues.)

When, how-and whom-do you tell?
Employees should think carefully about how much and to whom they are planning to disclose information. That depends on the work environment.  First of all, if an employee can perform the job perfectly well despite a mental illness, they are under no obligation to disclose their condition to an employer. In fact, the benefits and risks of disclosing should be carefully weighed before any action is taken. If an employee is at a crisis point or needs special accommodation for doctors' appointments, they should know that an employer doesn't need every gritty detail; the employer needs concrete information about the mental illness and how its treatment will affect the work performed, the working day or the work environment.

Sharing information with co-workers is a matter of personal choice, but if co-workers will be directly affected by changes then it helps if they understand why (and many times co-workers become a great source of support). If you have specific needs, voice them to your employer. If you cannot do your regular job in the same way as always, suggest other possibilities in the company while you undergo treatment.

Reality check
The first, best, way to combat stigma - at the workplace or otherwise - is to get educated about mental illness and then educate others.

• No one asks for a mental illness. Some are caused by chemical imbalances in the body. Some people are genetically predisposed to certain types of the disease. Some are a result of an overload of stress, grief, pain, sadness or difficult circumstances.
• Most mental illness will, if treated properly, be cured or at least controlled. Treatment will be profoundly more successful when the person who is suffering has the support of employer, family and friends.
• Mental illness is not something a sufferer can simply get the better of by force of will.
• The diseases are not signs of weakness or lack of intelligence. Mental illness can affect anyone at any time and, according to the CMHA, many studies have indicated that people who suffer a mental illness or typically of average or above-average intelligence.
• Contrary to a common myth, people with mental illnesses aren't any more violent than any other group. We just hear about it more.
• Men are less likely to believe that they can suffer from mental illness but there is a growing body of evidence to dispute that. And in Canada, 80 per cent of those who commit suicide are male.
• The costs of mental illness are enormous in every way. The economic cost in 1998 in Canada was estimated at $7.9 billion in care, disability and early death. Another $6.3 billion went to uninsured health services and time away from work for depression that was not being treated. In 1999, 1.5 million hospital days were due to mental illness.