Family Conference 2014

Spotlight On Mental Health

Saturday April 26th 2014 had a one day Mental Health/Addiction Family Conference.CI&I Table at the Family Conference April 26 2014

I went there to promote the CIF as well as the full Consumer Involvement and Initiative team.  This team includes peer support, peer led education as well as the CIF (Consumer Initiative Fund).

We had a table there and answered many questions about peer involvement.

Popular topics was peer support and peer led education (BRIDGES and WRAP in particular).

I referred many people to the various programs and gave them full contact information of who could get their questions answered (when I did not know the full answer).

In the afternoon I attended a talk on understanding addiction which was excellent –some cutting edge information was given.

The day came to a close and we had given out almost all of the BRIDGES and WRAP brochures.

Another common question was what would interest my son/daughter?  To which I spoke of various programs and introduced them to peer support and peer led education as well as CIF.

And one other topic of questions came to light – where do I get these programs in my area – when they were not from Vancouver specifically.  I gave these questioners our brochures and recommended they advocate for similar programs – as well as gave these family members direction where to find out what was available in their area.

Ian Sadler, Coordinator

Consumer Initiative Fund