No One Left Behind–spotlight on addiction
CAMH’s ongoing No One Left Behind fundraising campaign is the world’s largest in support of hospital-based mental health research. The plan calls for philanthropic donations to accelerate mental health research at CAMH and build a new Research & Discovery Centre at CAMH’s Queen Street site in Toronto. These investments will enable researchers to tackle the mental health and addiction crisis, driving discovery in priority areas such as brain science, youth mental health and health equity.
David C. Onley Award for Leadership in Accessibility
Established in 2014, these awards recognize Ontarians who have gone above and beyond to improve accessibility and the quality of life of people with disabilities. The 2023 awards went to Carol-Ann Chafe, Mark Adrian Ewer, Lorin MacDonald, Andrew Nielsen, Kimberley Paradis, Nik Provenzano. The recipients were recognized in a ceremony at the Royal Ontario Museum presided over by the Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.
Where you live as vital as what you eat
Air quality, heat and food in a neighbourhood have enormous impacts on your health say urban designers. It’s usually the poorer areas that are a couple of degrees hotter, less shady, closer to traffic or harder to walk or cycle. Epidemiologist Tolullah Oni, University of Cambridge works to identify risks like speed of cars, poor roads, lack of walkable streets and inequal distribution of healthy public spaces. The aim is to be able to use this data in real time that we call, precision activism and advocacy to plan and generate healthy change.
Courthouse dogs make trials less scary for kids
A young witness is about to testify about being physically and sexually abused by her father from the age of four. Iggy, an eight year-old large black lab, Burmese cross, is there from Boost, a child victim witness support program help make it easier. Iggy doesn’t just go to court, he is considered a staff member. Often witness like her will tuck their toes into the warm weight of his body or pet him with socked feet. He’s so calm. When they look at him and just keep breathing, they calm right down.
Savvy siblings learning to care
As their parent’s age, more siblings are becoming caregivers for their brothers and sisters living with disabilities. Siblings Canada has now launched a course to help current carers and those anticipating a future role to prepare. Some of the things they look at are: Benefits and programs, income supports and claw backs, preventing exploitation. Effective action plans for financial security. This is a fully free program to be completed in your own time.
Calming neurons to quell seizures
A new gene therapy tool is now being tested and developed that might, one day, offer a new treatment option for those people who are living with epilepsy. Professors at University College London, Drs Gabriele Lignani and Dimitri Kullman have high hopes that their tool, which will only switch on in overactive neurons, will be able to successfully reduce their hyperactivity to prevent seizure activity. They suggest that the treatment will work only when it needs to and not when unnecessary.
