Changing Minds

Learn about mental illness from people living with mental illness.

Changing Minds is a workshop that combines the experience of people living with mental illness with clinical research to help you improve your understanding of mental health and mental illness. Delivered to hundreds of Canadians each year, this powerful and engaging workshop empowers you to better support those with mental illness and break down stigma.

Who should take this workshop?

Changing Minds is for anyone and is open to all Nova Scotians. This workshop is a helpful tool for those who are supporting someone who lives with a mental illness, have someone in their life who lives with a mental illness or anyone who wants to increase their understanding of mental health and mental illness.

What you will learn:

• The difference between mental health and mental illness
• Overview of specific illnesses, including depression, anxiety and psychosis
• The impact of stigma

Contact our Education and Training team at [email protected] to book your workshop today!

Changing Minds Course Outline

Module 1 – Understanding Mental Health and Mental Illness
Goal: To introduce the concepts of mental health and mental illness and explore our
response to mental illness.

Module 2 – Living with a Diagnosis
Goal: To increase our ability to understand and relate to a person who has been diagnosed
with a mental illness.

Module 3 – Understanding Depression
Goal: To understand major depression and barriers to sensitive communication.

Module 4 – Understanding Anxiety
Goal: To recognize the effect of fear and anxiety in mental illness and develop the ability
to respond to people’s needs for safety.

Module 5 – Understanding Psychosis
Goal: To learn to relate to someone who is temporarily experiencing a different reality.

Module 6 – Understanding Mania and Mood Swings
Goal: To understand the impact of mood swings on a person’s relationships and
interactions.

Module 7 – Understanding Complex Mental Health Problems
Goal: To understand how people develop extreme coping mechanisms in order to express
their needs.

Module 8 – Understanding Addictions & Using Our Skills
Goal: To review and practice what we have learned.

We are able to offer a subsidized rate for Changing Minds thanks to grant funding from the Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia.

As a non-profit, non-government organization CMHA NS relies on grant funding and donations to deliver community-based mental health programs, free of cost to anyone who needs them. Those who choose to support CMHA NS understand that ensuring individuals experience good mental health is good for entire communities.

If you would like to help us keep these programs barrier free, there are many ways for you to donate.