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This Is My Brave, Inc. is a national 501c3 organization that provides a platform for individuals to share their true, personal stories of living successful, full lives despite mental illness through poetry, essay, original music and comedy on stage in front of a live audience to end the stigma. We also share stories submitted to us via our blog, and all our shows are professionally videotaped and uploaded to our YouTube channel.
Through the sharing of stories and experiences of those in recovery, we provide a sense of community and hope; and encourage others to share their stories. We believe that each time one of us shares our story, there’s another crack helping to break down the stigma surrounding mental illness. We believe in the power of community. There’s strength found in people coming together to propel a movement forward which is why we created our organization. One day we hope to live in a world where we won't have to call it brave for talking openly about mental illness; we'll simply call it talking.
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Created and supported by The Moyer Foundation, Camp Mariposa is a national addiction prevention and mentoring program for youth impacted by substance abuse in their families. Children ages 9-12 attend transformational weekend camps multiple times a year, always free of charge. Additional education and mentoring activities are offered to campers, teens, and their families throughout the year giving youth the knowledge, coping skills and confidence to prevent them from developing an addiction of their own. Led by mental health professionals and trained volunteers, Camp Mariposa provides a safe, fun and supportive environment critical to help break the cycle of family addiction across 12 locations nationwide.
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Families for Addiction Recovery (FAR) is a Canadian charity founded by parents of children who have struggled with addiction from their teens. Our goal is long term recovery for those with addiction and their families.
FAR offers free and confidential parent-to-parent support for families struggling with addiction in Canada. We are a voice for families to influence government policy. We educate law enforcement, the medical profession and community groups about addiction, health laws and drug policies.
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CADDAC is a national, not-for-profit, organization providing leadership and support in awareness, education and advocacy for ADHD organizations and individuals across Canada. From a day to day perspective this means CADDAC organizes, builds and presents up-to-date scientifically based, educational programs; actively advocates to government and institutional decision makers for changes that will benefit those with ADHD, their families and care providers; provides one on one support and information to parents and adults with ADHD; provides networking between ADHD groups across Canada, and strives to increase the awareness and understanding of ADHD on all levels.
For more information contact us at:
Address - 7800 Kennedy Road, Suite 303A Markham ON L3R 2C7
Phone: (416) 637-8584
Website: http://www.caddac.ca/
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Suicide Prevention Resource Centre's vision is to reduce suicide, suicidal behaviour, and their effects, by promoting positive alternatives and healthy coping skills.
Our mission:
To Listen to people’s stories of their struggles with depression, anxiety and other mental health issues, and help them find hope and support through increased coping skills and healthy behaviors.
To Raise Awareness and understanding of head health and to promote open dialogue in our community about mental health issues.
To Support those who have suffered loss to suicide, to listen to their heartbreaking stories, and to help them find understanding and strength to move forward.
To Teach that it is life-saving to ask about suicidal thoughts and to reach out to help friends and family members find the support and resources they need to live healthy, productive lives.
To Keep Faith with our community, to best manage the financial resources entrusted to us, and to respect and value our dedicated and passionate employees.
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The National Inclusion Project serves to bridge the gap that exists between young people with disabilities and the world around them. We partner with recreational programs nationwide to ensure that children of ALL abilities have a place to participate and belong. No child should sit on the sidelines.
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A Unique Blend of Research and Support for People with Mood Disorders
By Roberta E. Tovey, PhD
Director of Communications, MoodNetwork
Here's a staggering statistic: one third of people in the US today show signs of clinical depression or anxiety. What's the reason for this increase? According to Marizio Fava, MD, psychiatrist-in-chief of the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital “ ... the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to cause significant stress and psychological distress for a large proportion of the population. And we know the rates are progressively increasing.”
Living during the era of COVID-19 is not easy for anyone. But it is especially challenging for the many who struggle with depression or bipolar disorder, or who care for someone who does. The threat of a virus that is not fully understood, and whose trajectory is still largely unknown, creates the kind of stress that can easily exacerbate these conditions.
Now, more than ever before, we need to work harder to learn how to best treat mood disorders. We also need to provide more support for the millions of people who live with these complex and often hard-to-treat conditions.
MoodNetwork (moodnetwork.org), an online network for people who live with depression and bipolar disorder based at Massachusetts General Hospital, offers both a platform for research into new ways to treat mood disorders and a place for people with mood disorders to find community, support, and tools to help them cope in these difficult times.
Since the site was launched in 2015, MoodNetwork has hosted studies that investigate a wide range of potential tools and treatments for mood disorders. Can a smartphone application help track your mood, potentially alerting you to an episode of depression or mania before it happens? Can an online cognitive behavioral therapy or mindfulness intervention increase how much you exercise as measured by a Fitbit? Can mindfulness training help reduce stress, and if so, is the small "dose" of mindfulness training you can get in a four-week course as effective as the larger dose you'd receive in a longer, eight-week version? Does using a genetic test to help choose medications to treat depression lead to better outcomes for patients?
Other studies have included a comparative effectiveness study of medications for treating bipolar disorder; studies involving parents of children with mood disorders; studies about the impact of COVID-19 on frontline clinician stress, and a study that examines brain function in adults who have a parent or sibling who has suffered from depression and made a suicide attempt.
The over 6,000 members of MoodNetwork can choose to participate in any study on the MoodNetwork platform, providing that they meet the study's eligibility requirements. Many of those who have joined research studies like these say that they joined to help others with the same conditions that they have or to try cutting-edge treatments which are not yet available to the general public.
MoodNetwork members also can use a variety of tools, trackers, and questionnaires to help them assess how they're doing. Each member has a personal dashboard with a live graph that shows how one’s mood fluctuates over time; the dashboard also has links to questions-and-answers with our clinical team, "brain" games, and the MoodNetwork Facebook page feed. Members can also find support and a sense of community with others who share their experiences in forums and blogs.
In these challenging times, accessing available mental health resources is more important than ever. MoodNetwork embodies the idea that we are all in this together, leveraging the experiences of its entire community to seek advances in treatment and offer a variety of supports and tools for those with mood disorders.
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Actively Moving Forward, a HealGrief program is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting grieving college students.
1 in every 3 college students are grieving a loved one’s death or the diagnosis of a loved one’s terminal illness! The organization accomplishes its mission by creating Actively Moving Forward chapters on college campuses nationwide. AMF, an acronym for ActivelyMovingForward connects and empowers these grieving students to support one another and participate in community service in memory of their loved ones. Students are given the tools to cope, and the education to understand that grief is normal; grief is not depression; suicide is never an option; and a healthy grief recovery does exist.
AMF also supports non-collegiate young adults and professionals working with college students and young adults by creating a wealth of virtual information, programming, and community.
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Out of the FOG was launched in 2007 to provide information and support to the family members and loved-ones of individuals who suffer from a personality disorder.
Dealing with a loved-one or family member who suffers from a personality disorder can sometimes feel like navigating through a fog. FOG stands for Fear, Obligation, Guilt - feelings which often result from being in a relationship with a person who suffers from a Personality Disorder. The FOG acronym was coined by Susan Forward & Donna Frazier in their book Emotional Blackmail. It is our hope that this site may help some navigate out of the FOG in their own lives.
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PFLAG Canada is a national charitable organization, founded by parents who wished to help themselves and their family members understand and accept their non-heterosexual children. The "coming-out" process can be a critical time for families. When the adjustment period is particularly long or painful, relationships can become permanently damaged, resulting in a lifetime of emotional scars. People cannot always rise above the challenge of accepting themselves or their family member, and the results can be devastating, even fatal. We support these families through today, and give them hope for a better tomorrow.
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