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 advocating for improved criminal justice response to persons with mental illness. Our current focus is two-fold: to work in partnership to develop and implement best practice standards in police response to emotionally disturbed persons, and to promote best practices in the diversion of persons with mental illness out of the criminal justice continuum.
- Income/Homeless 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
- BC Healthy Minds/Healthy Campuses Initiative creating a provincial vision of mentally healthy campuses for those who work in a post-secondary environment in BC and want to improve the ways colleges and universities support student mental health and healthier relationships with substances
- Other Policy and Research work such as our Strengthening Family and Youth Voices project, 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.