Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences (Ontario Shores) has taken an innovative step toward eliminating the stigma associated with mental illness by igniting conversations through a new forum, the #MindVine Podcast.
The inaugural episode of the MindVine Podcast hosted by Darryl Mathers and Chris Bovie, members of the Communications and Public Affairs team, was made available in August on YouTube, iTunes and SoundCloud.
The MindVine podcast serves as a tool to bring news, views and interviews around mental health together.
The first episode features conversations about actress Kristen Bell’s recent acknowledgement of her 15-year struggle with anxiety and depression and an interview with Ontario Shores VP and Chief Nursing Executive Barb Mildon about the evolution of stigma. The centerpiece of the podcast is a sit-down interview with Canadian singer/songwriter/author Dan Hill. Dan is best known as the artist behind the Grammy Award-winning hit song ‘Sometimes when we touch’.
The podcast is an extension of MindVine, a blogging website Ontario Shores’ launched in 2014 to share stories of recovery, expertise and opinions related to mental illness. It’s been successful in generating conversations and giving people a voice they might not have thought they had.
In September, the MindVine Podcast was on-site at the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Mental Health for All Conference in Toronto. During the three-day event the MindVine Podcast hosted a series of guests from a variety of roles in the mental health sector, including Louise Bradley, President and CEO of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, Dr. Stan Kutcher, Sun Life Financial Chair in Adolescent Mental Health, and mental health advocate Mark Henick.
Moving forward the MindVine podcast will tackle a variety of mental health topics related to adolescent, forensic, geriatric, and other patient populations.