People who experience acute and severe mental health challenges which significantly impact on their day-to-day life, can now receive recovery-oriented, trauma-informed treatment through an intensive Island Health day program based in Victoria.
For the second year, Island Health is allocating up to $1 million for resilience and safety grants aimed at helping improve mental health, mitigate the harms associated with illicit substance use and build youth resilience.
Cameron Webster is living proof that life sometimes has a way of coming full circle. In 2014, Webster became a client of Island Health’s Early Psychosis Intervention Program in Victoria after being diagnosed with psychosis; a year later he was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, which features symptoms of schizophrenia and mood disorders.
This International Overdose Awareness Day (IOAD) August 31, Island Health is hosting a digital memory wall to honour those lost to a toxic drug poisoning. IOAD is the world's largest annual campaign to end overdose, and this online memorial encourages everyone to remember, without stigma, those who have died, and acknowledge the grief of family, friends and caregivers left behind.
Anyone in the Island Health region can now contribute data to help inform potential drug poisoning overdose advisories.
A pair of Cowichan-based Island Health employees are cycling across Canada this summer to raise funds and awareness about mental health, homelessness, substance use and brain injuries - and how these issues are so connected.
Residents of Vancouver Island living with moderate mental health and substance use challenges now have improved access to publicly-funded, community-based counselling.
In conjunction with Mental Health Week, Island Health is recognizing two individuals for their efforts to create meaningful change for people struggling with mental health and substance use challenges. Niki Ottosen, the creator of an initiative to help people living without homes and Emily Olsen, the founder of a mental health platform to support, educate and destigmatize mental health issues are the winners of Island Health’s 2023 Mental Health and Substance Use (MHSU) Community Service Awards.
Island Health is centralizing walk-in mental health and substance use (MHSU) services in Nanaimo to one location beginning March 15, 2023.
Enhanced services are available for people in Nanaimo experiencing mental health and/or substance use crises, thanks to Car 54 – a full-time mental health mobile program that launched in October 2022.