(Photo Supplied: Clara Hughes talks with 500 staff of the Fort McMurray Public School District at Ecole McTavish on Jan. 29, 2016. FMPSD / TWITTER)
You wouldn’t think that a six time Olympic medalist has battled mental illness, but Clara Hughes has, and she’s become one of Canada’s most outspoken people on the topic.
The Winnipeg-born Hughes was in Fort McMurray Friday to talk mental health with over 500 members of the Fort McMurray Public School District for its professional development day at Ecole McTavish.
“Seeing a school board district so empowered and really being leaders in this field it’s phenomenal,” said Hughes in a scrum following her keynote speech. “To see what’s unfolded here is really incredible it gives me so much hope and it gives me also a lot of examples that I can bring to other parts of Canada to say hey you should see what this school board is doing.”
Hughes is part of Bell’s Let’s Talk day held Wednesday which promotes conversation around mental illness and mental wellbeing. This year the campaign raised over $6 million for mental health initiatives.
“We’ve done a lot of research to see the impact of specifically the awareness part of the Bell Let’s Talk campaign and the numbers are extremely high when it comes to acceptance, when it comes to the feeling of has the stigma been reduced and it’s particularly high among young Canadians the 18-to-24 age group. They really believe that things are shifting and that they have a voice and they can use it.”
Hughes notes that while there is progress there is still a lot of learning to be done, and that there are ways people can help those suffering with mental health issues.
“I think education is very important, listening, language is very important, talking, opening up the conversation and you can only really start to understand those things by looking into them. You’re kind of just there until someone professional can come in and help the person, you cannot be that professional person, you cannot be that trained person and quite frankly you shouldn’t be because you probably will do it wrong.”
There are a number of resources available in Fort McMurray when it comes to mental health wellness including Some Other Solutions which can be reached by phone anytime at (780) 743-4357.
