ICYMI: December at Health Justice
In Case You Missed It: What we did in November and December
Blog Post Highlight: Self-determination in mental health law and service matters
This blog post for December was about how meaningful choice and self-determination are incredibly important for those impacted by mental health law and services, written by someone with lived experience. Read the blog post to learn more.
Our first publication in our series on Mental Health Act reform was released!
If you haven’t seen it yet, back near the beginning of December we released our first publication in our series on Mental Health Act reform. A Path Forward: Human rights-based guiding principles for BC’s mental health law and services covers both the context for why BC’s Mental Health Act needs to change as well as eight guiding principles that could help anyone who is tasked with interpreting the law, and more.
If you’re looking for a quicker read, a plain language summary of the publication can be found here.
Our Impact
Transparency is important and people want to know what their money is going to when they donate so we created Our Impact page which contains our Impact Report summarized so you can easily see what we have been able to achieve as well as a link to the full report for anyone who is interested. Health Justice is funded through grants as well as donations, and donations help us maintain our independence so that we can continue to advocate for those impacted by mental health law and services in BC. Every bit helps and we are so thankful for our donors. While the Impact Report covers what we were able to achieve in 2021/2022, to see what this funding helps us continue to work on, check out our work on the Mental Health Act.
To keep up with what we’re up to, check out our socials below!
ICYMI: Other News
Weave Human Rights into Mental Health Act, Urges Report
“Enshrining human rights in British Columbia’s Mental Health Act should be a priority to improve outcomes for the rising number of people treated involuntarily for mental health and substance use, says an advocacy group.”
Select Standing Committee on Health just released its report on the toxic drug and overdose crisis
The report makes several important findings and on the urgent and ongoing illicit drug toxicity and overdose crisis, including that “the Mental Health Act is outdated and urgently requires a comprehensive review.”