StFX receives a $20,000 Bell Let’s Talk Community Fund grant to support mental health training

January 17th, 2018

St. Francis Xavier University is pleased to announce that the Bell Let’s Talk Community Fund is providing a $20,000 grant to expand Mental Health Literacy and Mental Health First Aid training on campus.

This funding will support training of an additional Mental Health First Aid (Adults Who Interact with Youth) course instructor at StFX, as well as training materials. StFX also plans to partner with First Nations experts who are trained as instructors in the Mental Health First Aid First Nations Course, to offer specialized training to student services professionals.

“By increasing mental health literacy across our campus, we will increase our ability to support all students in distress and guide them to appropriate professional resources as needed,” said Dr. Kent MacDonald, President of StFX. “We are pleased to have the support of Bell Let’s Talk for such an important issue on our campus. Bell has taken the lead across Canada in spotlighting the significance of mental health.”

“Bell Let’s Talk is very proud to provide a $20,000 grant to support additional Mental Health Literacy and First Aid training at StFX,” said Mary Deacon, Chair of Bell Let’s Talk. “The 2017 Bell Let’s Talk Community Fund provided 70 grants to support programs providing mental health services in communities around the country that help Canadians living with mental illness.”

StFX has already invested in training for three Mental Health First Aid (Adults Who Interact with Youth) instructors and has committed to offering six to eight more courses per year. The university offers Mental Health First Aid training to faculty, staff and students to increase mental health literacy across the campus community, and to improve and increase access to mental health supports for all our students.

Bell Let’s Talk Day is January 31

Bell will donate 5 cents to Canadian mental health programs for each of these interactions on January 31, at no extra cost to participants:

Text and talk: Every text message, mobile and long distance call made by Bell Canada, Bell Aliant and Bell MTS customers

Twitter: Every tweet using #BellLetsTalk and Bell Let’s Talk Day video view

Facebook: Every view of the Bell Let’s Talk Day video at Facebook.com/BellLetsTalk and use of the Bell Let’s Talk frame

Instagram: Every Bell Let’s Talk Day video view

Snapchat: Every use of the Bell Let’s Talk filter and video view

The Bell Let’s Talk initiative promotes Canadian mental health with national awareness and anti-stigma campaigns like Bell Let’s Talk Day, and provides significant Bell funding of community care and access, research and workplace initiatives. To learn more about the Bell Let’s Talk campaign, and to download the Bell Let’s Talk toolkit to help get the conversation started, please visit Bell.ca/LetsTalk.

NT5