October at CoMHWA
October was a very busy month for CoMHWA!
Mental Health Week 2016This year’s Mental Health Week was certainly packed full of events and things to do. CoMHWA participated in the annual Graylands Mental Health Week Fair, engaging with consumers, carers and other service providers to spread the word about our advocacy, peer support work and education workshops.We also attended the Minditj Kaart-Moorditj Kaart forum in the city and heard from Aboriginal Elders telling their experiences of the Looking Forward Project. There were two Peaceful Morning Tea’s hosted by the Fremantle Multicultural Centre, CoMHWA and host Daniel Antonio which was a great small group of people who came together to talk about creativity, friendship, gardening and wellbeing.Lastly, CoMHWA held a “Lived Experience Shorts” movie afternoon. While we didn’t get to see all three short films, we did see “Crooked Beauty”; a documentary about an artist’s journey from childhood abuse, to psych ward patient to mental health advocate. An enjoyable afternoon with some delightful people!
Global Peer Supporters Celebration Day 2016The second annual WA event for Global Peer Supporters Day, proudly hosted by CoMHWA was a great success! Over 30 Peer Workers and Peer Supporters came together on the 20th October to celebrate the achievements of the past 12 months.Thank you to Ron Coleman from Working to Recovery for being our guest speaker for the morning and reminding us of the importance of peer workers and equality in the workplace. Another thank you to Mickey from Human Rhythms who taught us to play the 'tubes' - just quietly, we sounded great! Lastly, we thank everyone who attended and those who shared a toast to highlight the achievements of peer supporters.All in all, a great morning, with delicious food, tasty cake and amazing company!
CoMHWA AGMFollowing our AGM held on Tuesday 25th October, please join us in welcoming our new Board Directors, Anne St Jack and Tom Hosking. Anne is a retired Clinical Psychologist who has experience in public mental health, private practice and tertiary education, working with all age groups. Tom is a Lawyer and has a lived experience of mental health who has volunteered and worked at the Mental Health Law Centre and taught at Curtin University.We also thank outgoing Directors; Peter Wright and Stephanie Ransome who have both contributed immensely to CoMHWA while serving on the Board.We would also like to thank the Hon. Stephen Dawson MLC for agreeing to be our guest speaker for the night ad for discussing his passion to progress mental health services in WA and acknowledging the work that CoMHWA carries out year after year. A copy of our 2015-16 Annual Report is available here.
