{"id":12244,"date":"2016-07-14T09:00:10","date_gmt":"2016-07-14T16:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=12244"},"modified":"2016-08-05T12:37:31","modified_gmt":"2016-08-05T19:37:31","slug":"new-camosun-project-aims-to-fight-stigma-for-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2016\/07\/14\/new-camosun-project-aims-to-fight-stigma-for-students\/","title":{"rendered":"New Camosun project aims to fight stigma for students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Camosun College is hoping to raise awareness for students struggling with mental health, substance use, or learning challenges through the Living in Our Shoes: Mental Health and Substance Use Stigma Reduction Project, which will run from September to February on both campuses. The project will consist of lunchtime talks where a panel of three or four people who have obtained a degree of stability in their mental struggles will speak about their experiences and self-care strategies that help them cope.<\/p>\n

Camosun College Student Society women\u2019s director Melanie Winter\u2014who lost her father to suicide nine years ago\u2014says Camosun is \u201cfighting stigma one student at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was volunteering in suicide prevention, and so I just decided, you know, we all struggle with something, and if we just had more conversations about it, maybe we could open that dialogue,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m not saying that would ever change my dad\u2019s circumstances, but had the conversation been around when I was younger, maybe it wouldn\u2019t have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Camosun<\/a>
Camosun College Student Society women’s director Melanie Winter wants to help fight stigma (file photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After nine years without her father, Winter says that she can now \u201cturn around and put that pain into purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was at those developmental years of my life,\u201d she says. \u201cIt definitely left me feeling like, \u2018Why wasn\u2019t I enough? Why couldn\u2019t I save you?\u2019 It was a really great education piece in understanding, compassion, and empathy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winter says she is hoping her work in promoting mental-health awareness will help people realize that the answer lies in compassion, and that suicide does not get rid of the pain for those struggling; it merely passes it on to loved ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, helping other people is what helps me just come to terms with what happened,\u201d she says. \u201cMaybe they can see the pain it\u2019s causing and they won\u2019t do it to their own kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camosun Nursing instructor Allison McLeod is part of the college project; she says mental health has always been a big part of the nursing program at Camosun.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time I\u2019m teaching anything, I\u2019m trying to relate it to [mental health]. If you have a patient in for heart challenges or cardiac functioning, it doesn\u2019t mean they don\u2019t have a mental-health challenge along with that. Or do they have a learning challenge? How are you going to approach their education around taking care of their health?\u201d<\/p>\n

McLeod\u2014who has lived with ADHD for over 20 years\u2014says combating mental health is \u201ca full-time job on top of a full-time job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is about hard work, but there are a lot of people out there that have mental-health [challenges] and learning challenges that perhaps we don\u2019t know about. I\u2019d like people to start talking about that more, saying, \u2018I\u2019m successful, I\u2019ve got a great career, and I\u2019ve been struggling with anxiety for the last 20 years,\u2019 that it does take hard work, but it also takes a lot of skill, a lot of support, and a lot of strength. And people can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLeod says the only thing that comes from feeling shame and embarrassment around mental health is more suffering.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people deserve a lot of respect for the amount of effort they put in, not just for getting through the day,\u201d says McLeod. \u201cI\u2019ve had people come forward, and say\u2014these are employees\u2014they come forward and say, \u2018I want to tell my story.\u2019 I think it\u2019s really important for students to hear that they can do it, that they can get through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first talk is on Wednesday, September 28 from 11:45 to 12:45 am at room LLC 151 in the Lansdowne library.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Camosun College is hoping to raise awareness for students struggling with mental health, substance use, or learning challenges through the Living in Our Shoes: Mental Health and Substance Use Stigma Reduction Project, which will run from September to February on both campuses. The project will consist of lunchtime talks where a panel of three or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive","category-campus"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12244"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12283,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12244\/revisions\/12283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}