Education and empowerment
Variety of skills courses offered through CMHA’s Learning, Training and Support Hub
When Brandi Campbell had to take time off from work for mental health issues, she didn’t just hope for the best.
She took action to combat her anxiety and depression.
She’d been seeing a psychiatrist and counsellor but wanted to learn more and work on some skills in her own time.
One day, she found out about new courses being offered by the Canadian Mental Health Association through a program called the Learning, Training & Support Hub.
She signed up for three courses in the first semester, the art of friendship, conquering negative thought patterns and establishing boundaries.
“It was and continues to be an important part of my recovery journey,” Campbell said. “I knew there must be ways to better deal with anxiety and depression and I have learned some of those skills from the learning hub.”
TOOLS
The P.E.I. division of the CMHA launched the Learning Hubs in 2020.
Campbell listed some of the valuable skills she has picked up along the way: reframing negative thoughts; understanding negative thought patterns; establishing healthy boundaries; learning to be assertive.
Campbell first got involved with CMHA programming in 2020, when she saw a poster for a different course, which was called your recovery journey.
Her whole experience working with the organization has been positive, she said.
“The CMHA has been a valuable resource for me, not only for providing courses but also the peer support specialists.”
CMHA peer support specialists are individuals with lived-experience around mental health. Campbell meets with one regularly.
“They help by listening and providing feedback based on their experience with the same or similar issue,” she said. “It helps me know that I am not alone and that there is hope.”
While many courses have been moved online because of the pandemic, Campbell said the virtual format actually works well.
“You still get to share ideas and have dialogue through the chat box, or if people want to talk to the group, that is also an option. I think the format is ideal for people with anxiety, especially social anxiety.”
Campbell also likes the flexibility and range of courses, she said.
“For example, you can take the bite size insight to anxiety class in one evening, or if you want a deeper dive, there is a three-week insights to anxiety course.”
FIRST-HAND KNOWLEDGE
Ultimately, she left the courses with new tools, she said, some from facilitators and some from other participants.
“I think it is a real benefit that the facilitators and creators of the courses have lived experience.”
“In one of the courses, I learned a quick, new grounding technique that the facilitator uses,” she said as an example. “It is something that I now use, and it works.”
This lived experience is a key part of what makes the Learning, Training and Support Hub effective, said Tayte Willows, community development manager with the CMHA, P.E.I. division.
“We see folks being more willing to engage on a more personal level because they know this was originally brought forward by someone who had been in that same place, who had walked those same paths.”
The hub is based on something called the recovery college model, Willows said.
This means course materials and instruction are provided by an even mix of mental health professionals and people who have been through difficulties themselves.
“It creates a nice balance in terms of the way the content is presented, the type of information that gets covered, as well as the openness of discourse that happens.”
While the program offers participants a chance to be proactive in their mental health journey, Willows explained it’s not meant to replace therapy or medication.
“It really sits in the more preventative sphere. It’s really about equipping people with skills before they hit a point of crisis.”
And that’s exactly what Campbell got out of the program.
“It was very important for me to get all the information I could on my mental illness and some general skills,” she said.
“The Learning Hub has definitely helped with that, and I continue to take courses.”