October 10, 2024

A Mental Health Morning, featuring Dr. Samra Zafar, Raises Over $45,000 for Care at St. Joe’s

Thank you to everyone who joined us earlier today for A Mental Health Morning – presented by ArcelorMittal Dofasco. With thanks to the support of our guests, sponsors and speakers, today’s event raised over $45,000 for mental health and addictions care at St. Joe’s.  

This year’s event featured best-selling author, DEI expert and psychiatrist-in-residence, Dr. Samra Zafar, who through a mix of personal experience and powerful storytelling, spoke on Mental Health Through the Lens of Intersectionality.  

Exploring themes of healing with trauma; the importance of self-compassion; the power of authenticity, acceptance and belonging; and the collective effort it requires to build and support resilience throughout her keynote, we are incredibly thankful to Dr. Zafar for providing us with the opportunity to reflect and learn, and for inspiring us to continue breaking the stigma around mental health and addictions care.  

A special thank you goes to St. Joe’s Mental Health and Addictions team and our friends from Ontario Structured Psychotherapy who were on-site at the event to provide support and resources for those in need.  

---

Our Foundation would like to also extend our heartfelt congratulations to the 2024 Spirit of Hope Award winners. Each year, these awards honour the individuals and organizations in our community who are making impactful contributions to the fields of mental health and addictions care and research, or those who are actively working to reduce the stigma and shame that too often surrounds mental illness and substance use. 

Youth Category: RE-Create Art Studio 

RE-create Studio is an open, free art studio and outreach program for vulnerable Hamilton youth between the ages of 16 – 24. The studio is a safe and welcoming space that provides a community for youth facing barriers such as poverty, mental health issues, homelessness, low socioeconomic status, family conflict or whatever else life has put in their path.  

The youth-led activities and workshops allow those in attendance to self-express in a supportive environment, develop healthy relationships, and build community. Youth who come to RE-create are also shown how art can relieve stress and decrease mental health symptoms while helping develop skills that are essential to one’s well-being.  

In addition to being a welcoming and creative space, RE-create staff have established relationships with other youth-serving organizations, and work to connect youth with other supports that they may need including mental health supports, access to food, shelter, and employment. RE-create is more than an art studio, it’s a support system our youth can rely on.  

Group Category: Wayside House of Hamilton 

Wayside House of Hamilton is a bedded addictions treatment facility that provides abstinence-based care to men living with substance use disorder in Ontario. Working tirelessly to reduce the severity of substance dependence through client-centered counseling and evidence-based therapeutic interventions, Wayside House has made concurrent disorders a central focus of their program as addiction is often intimately linked to depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.  

Priding themselves on rising to the challenge of providing compassionate, evidence-informed care without bias or barriers, staff have created a safe space where participants can get to the root of their addiction and begin to build new patterns of thought and behaviour.  

Wayside House’s holistic approach also extends care to the loved ones of participants, provides accessible educational materials, and offers a Supportive Housing program, resulting in over 85% of Wayside House graduates reporting an increased confidence in their ability to stay sober in the face of mental and physical pressures. Through their compassionate approach, Wayside House is changing the narrative surrounding addiction and mental illness, encouraging our community to view these issues through a lens of empathy rather than judgment. 

Individual Category: Sid Stacey 

Sid is a suicide-loss survivor with the death of his teen daughter, Rachel, in 2007. To honour her memory, Sid established an annual city-wide awareness and fundraising event for suicide prevention called Running for Rachael. Now on its 12^th year, the event has created a sense of community, compassion, and hope among its many participants. 

Sid is also known for his leadership roles in our community, including his work in facilitating the development and launch of the citywide Hamilton Suicide Prevention Strategy in 2010, and chairing the Suicide Prevention Community Council of Hamilton since 2014. He also currently Chairs the Regional Suicide Prevention Committee. 

Sid has also been a key propeller of mental health education in our community over the years, coordinating the training effort to provide broad-based suicide prevention to interested Hamiltonians, which included 4000 trainings in safeTALK and ASIST and 500 trainings in Living Works START. Additionally, Sid has led the process to provide mental health awareness grants to schools to help eliminate stigma and facilitate awareness around seeking help, and he has developed educational tools such as ‘suicide is everyone’s responsibility’ cards that contain tips for identifying when someone may be considering suicide.  

At St. Joe’s, Sid has been an integral part of our annual Butterfly Ceremony of Remembrance held on World Suicide Prevention Day and has presented multiple times on suicide prevention initiatives at our Mental Health and Addiction Program Rounds.