9 organizations receive $150,000
in Bell Let's Talk Community Fund grants
MONTRÉAL, Oct. 2, 2017 /CNW
Telbec/ - In celebration of Mental Illness Awareness Week, Bell
Let's Talk today announced grants totalling $150,000 to 9 mental health organizations to
improve access to care for people living in the Greater Montréal
area.
Dr. Gaétan Barrette, Minister of Health and Social Services for
Québec, and Denis Coderre, Mayor of
Montréal, joined Martin Spalding,
Bell Media's Vice President and General Manager, Québec Radio and
Local TV, to make the announcement.
"Bell Let's Talk is proud to support these important
organizations and the much needed work they do to help people
living with mental illness in Montréal," said Mr. Spalding.
"Improving access to care within the community is a priority for
Bell Let's Talk. With the addition of these new partners, the Bell
Let's Talk Community Fund has provided grants to 26 organizations
across Québec this year."
This year's Bell Let's Talk Community Fund recipients in Greater
Montréal are:
- Centre de soir Denise-Massé
- Expression LaSalle centre
communautaire en santé mentale
- Fondation de l'Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur de Montréal
- Fondation Institut de gériatrie de Montréal
- Dr Clown Foundation
- Head & Hands/À 2 mains
- Le CAP – Centre d'apprentissage parallèle de Montréal
- Prise II
- Société québécoise de la schizophrénie et des psychoses
apparentées (SQS)
"The Bell Let's Talk Community Fund has been instrumental in
engaging the community in frank and open discussions on mental
illness, and in ending the stigma associated with the disease,"
said Gaétan Barrette, Minister of Health and Social Services. The
support provided to community organizations will help deliver
innovative projects to not only improve the quality of mental
health care and services, but to make them more accessible. I would
like to thank all those who work with these vulnerable people for
their invaluable efforts that are consistent with our own."
"Mental health is fragile," added Denis
Coderre, Mayor of Montréal. One in five Canadians will
experience some form of mental illness during their lifetime. This
figure is staggering. This is why mental health is a collective
responsibility. It is the premise that drives the City of
Montréal's actions regarding the overall health of its citizens.
This includes tackling the issue of mental illness being linked to
homelessness through the City of Montréal's Plan d'action
montréalais en itinérance 2014-2017, the Programme
d'accompagnement justice-santé mentale via the municipal court, or
the Équipe de soutien aux urgences psychosociales (ÉSUP) consisting
of SPVM police officers and social workers who patrol and intervene
directly at the frontline with people in crisis or suffering a
mental disturbance. Knowing the challenges linked to mental health,
I want to congratulate Bell for its social commitment, and
acknowledge its involvement in this cause. I hope that it will
inspire other private partners to get involved."
"On behalf of the SQS and the 8 other recipient
organizations, we would like to thank Bell Let's Talk for
supporting our programs and helping us to continue providing and
improving mental health care for people in the Greater Montréal
area," added Francine Dubé, Executive Director of the SQS.
"Our community organizations are a major asset for the public
health and social services network. With these generous grants, we
will be able to expand our programs and help more people who need
support, including our increasingly diverse clientele."
About Bell Let's Talk
The Bell Let's Talk initiative
promotes Canadian mental health with national awareness and
anti-stigma campaigns like Bell Let's Talk Day and provides
significant funding for community care and access, research and
workplace initiatives. To learn more, please visit
Bell.ca/LetsTalk.
The $1-million annual Bell Let's
Talk Community Fund makes donations to community-based mental
health initiatives to improve access to care throughout
Canada. Each year, registered charities can apply for a grant
up to $25,000, and all submitted applications are reviewed by
a committee of mental health experts from across the country.
Applications for the 2018 fund will open in January. Since its
launch in 2011, the Bell Let's Talk Community Fund has supported
414 grassroots mental health initiatives in communities from coast
to coast to coast.
About Bell
Bell is Canada's largest communications
company, providing broadband wireless, TV, Internet and business
communication services from Bell Canada, Bell Aliant and Bell
MTS. Bell Media is Canada's premier multimedia company with leading
assets in television, radio, out of home and digital media. To
learn more, please visit Bell.ca or BCE.ca.
The Bell Let's Talk Community Fund 2017 supports 9 Montréal
organizations
Centre de soir Denise-Massé
The Centre will use the Bell Let's Talk Community Fund grant to
quadruple the impact of its collective kitchen workshops, growing
to offer the experience to 24 people living with mental health
issues every month. Participants learn to cook simple, nutritious
meals at an affordable price in a communal setting, reflecting
their income levels, and create social links to break their
isolation and restore a sense of pride, autonomy and
self-confidence.
Expression LaSalle centre
communautaire en santé mentale
Expression LaSalle is a community
mental health centre that offers an alternative, non-medical
approach to helping people with complex, persistent mental health
issues through group and individual services that are artistic,
psychotherapeutic and psycho-educational. The Bell Let's Talk
Community Fund grant will be used to extend the length of one drama
therapy program and will also enable the Centre to quadruple the
number of drama therapy sessions offered.
Fondation de l'Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de
Montréal
To provide a more comprehensive treatment plan for children up to 5
years of age who face mental health challenges, the Foundation will
invest the Bell Let's Talk Community Fund grant in a standardized
evaluation protocol based on the latest available clinical
research. This will improve early and thorough assessments of
mental health problems and facilitate the development of
comprehensive intervention plans for the children and their
families.
Fondation Institut de gériatrie de Montréal
To help seniors reduce their dependence on medication to treat
their insomnia and anxiety, the Foundation will use the Bell Let's
Talk Community Fund grant to create the first online cognitive
behavioural therapy tools in French. The therapy, which has been
successful in helping seniors, will be made available at no
charge.
Dr Clown Foundation
For the past 15 years, the
Foundation has provided professional artists to visit children with
various illnesses and conditions. The Dr Clown Foundation will use
the Bell Community Fund grant to develop the expertise of its 31
therapeutic clowns on mental health. This grant will offer training
focused on specific issues and, with the collaboration of medical
staff and psycho-social workers, the artists will learn to adapt
their interventions to the specific needs of children visited. This
represents the first part of an entirely new program specialized in
mental health.
Head & Hands/À 2 mains
To expand its ongoing work with marginalized youth, Head &
Hands will use the Bell Let's Talk Community Fund grant to support
the work of an additional counsellor, 2 street workers and extra
administrative support that will enable them to help approximately
800 more youth than the current 1,200. Head & Hands provides
free, long-term counselling and mobile/in person on-the-spot crisis
support to youth who cannot access more traditional mental health
services due to marginalization or other barriers.
Le CAP (Centre d'Apprentissage Parallèle de
Montréal)
The Bell Let's Talk Community Fund grant will support Le CAP's
initiative to ease reintegration into society for those
experiencing psychological difficulties by enhancing existing
creative therapy programs. Specifically, the grant will help
develop 10 individual art exhibitions created by the Centre's
clients plus a travelling collective exhibition. By serving as
ambassadors for the exhibits, the clients will be better positioned
to participate in the broader community.
Prise II
Prise II, an alternative mental health
resource, will use the Bell Let's Talk Community Fund grant to
incorporate a mutual assistance practice into its service
offerings, and to set up a new group made up of and for people who
are completing their journey at Prise II. With this funding, the
centre will provide training and experiment with the "intentional
peer support" approach, an initiative supported b research and
access to other self-help groups.
Société québécoise de la schizophrénie et des psychoses
apparentées
Thanks to the Bell Let's Talk Community Fund grant, the Société
will be able to expand its humanistic and cognitive-behavioural
therapy (CBT) program. Families from five remote areas – Côte-Nord,
Gaspésie / Les Îles, Abitibi / Témiscamingue, Saguenay / Lac
St-Jean and Bas-Saint-Laurent – will benefit from this
one-of-a-kind, leading-edge program adapted for people helping to
care for a loved who is suffering from mental illness. Local
professionals will be trained and supported in order to expand the
reach of the program to the entire regional clientele. The training
aims to give participants a more thorough knowledge of
schizophrenia and allow them to learn effective strategies for
intervening with the caregiver as well as the person struggling
with a psychotic disorder.
Media inquiries:
Vanessa Damha
Bell
514 391-9794
vanessa.damha@bell.ca
@Bell_News
Francine Dubé
Société québécoise de la schizophrénie et des psychoses apparentées
(SQS) and
spokesperson for the nine recipient organizations
514 251-4125, ext. 0
fdube@schizophrenie.qc.ca
SOURCE Bell Canada