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 Centre for Addictionand Mental Health |
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Your Empowerment CouncilBreakthroughWinter 2005 A Voice for Clients and Former Clients By Jennifer Chambers, The Empowerment Council (EC) is a voice for clients and ex-clients of mental health and addiction services at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. We are all clients or ex-clients ourselves: the members who elect the Board, the Board itself, and all the staff. The staff consists of a coordinator and two part time outreach workers. We are a very small group attempting to represent over 10,000 clients a year at CAMH, but we do the best we can. Our mission is to conduct system-wide advocacy on behalf of clients and ex-clients. We try to bring the client voice to matters that affect a number of clients - such as CAMH policies and practices, national and provincial legislation, and the courtroom. We don't do individual advocacy ourselves, so we send people to those who do, while keeping track of the issues that are raised to inform our systemic advocacy. At CAMH, one of our greatest accomplishments has been the establishment of a CAMH Bill of Client Rights. CAMH and the EC negotiated the content of the Bill for over three years, and we now have the strongest Bill of its kind in the country. We also take cases to the Supreme Court of Canada, such as two cases we are currently involved with on the rights of people with addictions to receive Ontario Disability Support Payments (ODSP). We have addressed parliamentary and senate committees in support of the rights of people in the forensic system. We have offered educational workshops for clients, and surveyed people about their most important needs. We try to facilitate communication between CAMH and its clients through focus groups, special meetings, and by getting clients on CAMH committees. (We welcome hearing from all clients on committees about your experience - we encourage you to be in touch with us so we can support your meaningful involvement.) We spent the summer and fall working with CAMH to educate staff about the CAMH Bill of Client Rights. Now we are preparing for the client education phase, an ongoing process that we hope will be empowering as well as informative. We are an independent organization, accountable to our members for our direction. In this way clients have our own real voice at CAMH. CAMH has chosen to fund this independent client voice. As a result, CAMH has become a leader in its support for a model of genuine client empowerment. Our door is always open! Visit or call the following:
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Last updated: May 02, 2006 3:49 PM Published: November 21, 2008 3:29 PM ID#18971-R |