World Mental Health Day: Spotlight on Dan’s Legacy

What is your organization doing to support mental health in the workplace?
Today, October 10th, is World Mental Health Day. Our valued client, Dan’s Legacy, based in New Westminster, British Columbia, shared their insights on the importance of mental health in the workplace – particularly in the non-profit sector. Special thanks to Lee Crawford and Barbara Coates for sharing with us in recognition of this important day.

Introducing Barb Coates and Lee Crawford

Barb is Executive Director and Lee is Manager, Marketing & Communications with Dan’s Legacy.

Barb is passionate about children’s and mental health issues and is a past Director with the Canadian Mental Health Association (Delta). Lee leverages his teaching, marketing and digital animation skills and experience to support causes close to his heart.

What is Dan’s Legacy?

Barb: Dan’s Legacy provides youth who have experienced trauma, with effective counselling, education, vocational, and other support programming. It was created in memory of a young man who experienced a traumatic assault at the age of 17, which destroyed his life. He turned to drugs to deal with the overwhelming psychological pain of the trauma.

His parents tried desperately to get help but the available recovery centres were not age appropriate nor trauma-informed. Four days before his 20th birthday, Dan overdosed and died. Dan’s Legacy was created to provide other young people find they help they need when they ask for it.

How many youths are you helping?

Barb: In 2023, we helped over 600. We have team of therapists, social workers, outreach workers and more. What makes us different is we go directly to the youth wherever they are and all of our programs are offered for free.

We offer trauma-informed counselling, wrap-around support programs and job skills training.

It’s a full-circle approach.

What does World Mental Health Day mean to you?

Lee: In our space as a non-profit, the importance of self-care in the workplace is crucial so we’re in a better position to help the youth. We wrote a blog about self-care in the workplace. I hope it’s beneficial to our non-profit colleagues: CLICK HERE.

Barb: Just about everyone I know has a touchpoint with mental health issues. But there’s still so much stigma, which is surprising because everyone is either dealing with mental health issues or knows someone who is.

All of our clients are dealing with past trauma, but we also know that children and youth are really struggling with the constant barrage of information that they’re absorbing via social media. But since many don’t know how to curate the information they’re receiving, they can be misinformed or constantly fed negative content which which leads to anxiety and depression. This age of information is turning into the age of misinformation and I encourage everyone to be vigilant and protect their mental health.

What can non-profits do to support mental health on World Mental Health Day and all year long?

Lee: It’s nice to have people be more open about these conversations. It allows me to be open and say, “Well, listen, I’ve got about thirty years of [personal] experience!”

Celebrate the compassion of being open. Have a compassionate lens. Break down barriers and remove the stigma around conversation. Be easy on yourself and be easy on one another. As a male, I’m supposed to keep things internally. If you just open up a little, others will open up a little. Then you realize you’re not so alien and that takes the sting off of things.

Barb: Look out for your team, and keep doing the good work in the community. Understand that people with mental health challenges are not weak or broken, they are people who need compassion and support.

“The only time you should be looking down on someone is when you’re giving them a hand back up.” (Dan’s Legacy client quote).

Put good out into the universe. Try to be helpful and support people. Most people who are struggling with mental health issues will tell you that they’re just looking for someone who will listen. You’re not alone. We’re all in this together.

For more information on Dan’s Legacy Foundation’s important work, visit danslegacy.com

 

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