Moving Towards Our Vision
...at the Systems and Policy Level
An important part of supporting people with mental illness in BC involves finding ways to improve the way we think about and treat mental illness at the broader "systems" level. Here you can find out about our latest efforts to create positive change in the areas of public policy, community-based research and evaluation, monitoring of systems that provide services.
Some of our activities include:
- Mental Health and the Criminal Justice System projects exploring ways to improve the interactions between police personnel, people with mental illness experiencing a crisis, and mental health services, plus new work to look at the role of the courts.
- Strengthening Youth and Family Voices project demonstrating how strengthening family and youth involvement, and networks of peer support and collaboration with service providers improves outcomes for children and youth who use the mental health system -- and their families.
- Income/Homelessness Outreach project connecting people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness to income supports, housing and health services in 8 BC communities, and conducting BC-wide research to shed light on the issues, trends and needs
- Monitoring and Accountability initiatives tracking progress and outcomes in regional and provincial mental health systems
- Other Policy and Research work such as our Citizens for Mental Health regional project, workplace disability insurance work, regional system evaluations, early intervention studies, primary mental health care project, mental health act policy papers, budget consultation documents and other policy submissions.