family guide @ home
use Family Guide at home:
The Family Guide to Mental Health Recovery web site is designed to give family members materials that can be relevant to your experience and your perspective as a parent, brother or sister, spouse or son/daughter. Our materials are easily accessed online from your home, work or on your phone or tablet.
We offer a range of perspectives from family members, family support practitioners and educators but mostly, we give you direct access to the experiences and insights of family members just like you, so they can share their experience and insight.
VIDEO
We have many video options: you can view The Journey Home feature documentary in long form, you can watch 6-10 minute video clips in our “Mini Docs” section or you can view single family interviews or summaries in our “Family Interviews” gallery.
The Journey Home documentary is built in chapters; starting at the onset or awareness of a mental health issue, continuing through diagnosis and first approach for care and support, as well as first reactions of family members when confronting a family mental health challenge. We explore attitudes & culture, including the presence of stigma and resistance to seeking care. We discuss families facing and overcoming stigma at the Opening Minds Conference in Ottawa, and events such as Simply Divas and the No Surrender Hockey Tournament. We also interview Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau about his family’s experience with mental illness and recovery.
The final section of the film deals with Family member self-care, turning points on the road to recovery, insights & learning and finally, the experience of completing the journey to recovery. No matter what stage you and your family find yourselves in, we hope you can find content that offers you relevant insights and a confirmation that many other families experience similar paths to yours.
All video is free to view and is age-appropriate viewing for adults and your people aged 12 and over. We do not go into intimate details on symptoms, medications or worse-case outcomes. We focus on the experience of family members.
If you prefer to watch “The Journey Home” feature documentary on a large screen TV, uninterrupted and without issues with internet streaming > click here to order & purchase our new Journey Home DVD, with bonus features!
TEXT
We have selected articles and excerpts from published materials, exceptional presentations and gathered a number of individually written pieces by family members specifically for use on our site. If you visit the “INFORMATION & RESOURCES” section of the site, you will find text material organized into five subject headings:
Defining Mental Health and Illness
Mental Health Conditions
Family Support Resources
Family Stories in Text
The Road to Recovery for Families
Each section has many pieces: ranging from 20-30 page chapters, to single page letters and powerpoint presentations from support organizations who have contributed family support materials for your viewing. Please feel free to browse our materials to find relevant information and to open doors for further reading and online resources.
ONLINE COMMUNITY
The Family Guide to Mental Health Recovery was built to connect families. We intended to do this by sharing stories, experiences, learning and insight, but now we also have built an opportunity to host YOUR STORY and to help you connect with families directly.
YOU CAN DO THIS ON OUR SITE if you sign up for a FREE SITE MEMBERSHIP. Members have their own Profile Page. You can POST text and blog, you can upload text documents or presentations or even video or audio. You can also post in all of our ONLINE FORUMS. If you want to share your stories or views, being a Member will give you many options. If you are part of an Organization and want to set up an Organization Membership, you can do so as well.
MEMBERS can VIEW the profile pages of other family members & Organizations, and contact them directly. We are inviting family members, practitioners and organizations from around the world to join our site. Please take the opportunity to connect by becoming a Family Guide SITE MEMBER. We did mention we have a FREE 2 month membership? Well, we do! 🙂 Try it out. Connect and share.
If you have any suggestions or want to connect with us, or contribute content or financial support, please feel free to email us at: familyguidetomentalhealth@gmail.com