Community of Practice: Mental Health Basics with Tara Adams
As an early education centre who believes in educating our youngest citizens, we value the power of education and the impact it has on our lives. Since early last year, we have dedicated one evening every month to pursue our team members' personal and professional development by hosting Community of Practice sessions. Community Practice sessions are when a group of people who share common interests and goals create new knowledge together in a professional practice. For the month of January, special guest, Tara Adams, founder and owner of Abridge Consulting led a Mental Health Basics workshop for all our educators.
Tara founded Abridge Consulting based on a simple, but not easy, goal - to get more people, more help, sooner. She believes we can all learn how to be a bridge between people struggling with their mental health and getting them the support they need and deserve. With a strong background in learning and facilitation and a passion for workplace mental health, Tara spent several years as a Corporate Wellness Manager. During her time, she championed workplace mental health and overall employee wellness for 6,000 employees by building enterprise-wide strategies for mental, physical, emotional, and financial wellness. Our team gained valuable insights from Tara’s presentation and enjoyed her relatability and comfortability on a topic that seems oh so stigmatizing. Luckily, we’ve rounded up some key takeaways from January’s workshop. Read on to learn more about mental health and mental illness.
The differences between mental health and mental illness
These terms are increasingly being used interchangeably, but there are a few important distinctions between the two. Everyone has mental health (just like everyone has health), but not all people will experience a mental illness.
When we talk about mental health, we’re talking about our mental well-being: our emotions, our thoughts and feelings, our ability to solve problems and overcome difficulties, our social connections, and our understanding of the world around us. Mental illness instead refers to a wide range of mental health conditions - disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behaviour. Examples include anxiety, depression, addictive behaviours, eating disorders, and more.
Who is affected?
Mental illness will indirectly affect all Canadians at some in their life through a family member, friend or colleague. In any given year, 1 in 5 people in Canada will personally experience a mental health problem or illness. By age 40, about 50% or 1 in 2 people have, or will have a mental illness. Mental illness does not discriminate and affects people of all ages, education, income levels and cultures. It’s important to recognize that these statistics were released before COVID-19 impacted our world. Perhaps now, they could be smaller.
The mental health continuum model
This model teaches us how to recognize your emotions by classifying them into colour-coded sections. The chart below from the University of Waterloo illustrates how a person’s mental health normally moves on a spectrum. It is important to note that no one consistently stays in the same zone, and it is normal to shift to different zones due to external factors, including relationships, environments, work, living, family, and social life demands.
If you find yourself in the orange or red zones, or know someone who has, the following local mental health resources for Calgarians are available:
All the resources presented in this workshop were from Tara Adams Mental Health Basics presentation, and we are so honoured to have her share a variety of valuable information to our team and Wee Wild Ones community! At our centres and beyond, we want to ensure that everyone is feeling loved and cared for during this time, as so many are feeling stressed, lonely, burn out, or all of the above. If you are someone you know is struggling with their mental health and wellbeing, please don’t hesitate to ask, listen and connect them to resources. Stay well and take care of yourself - you and your wee ones will thank you for it!