In honour of Mental Health Week, Causeway is inviting you to a conversation about how to build your mental health toolbox and encourage community wellbeing.
Join us for a discussion about mental health resiliency with panelists Hailey Hechtman, Stacy-Ann Buchanan, and Asante Haughton.
Session Take-aways:
About the speakers:
Stacy-Ann Buchanan: Highlighted as an influential leader within her respective communities, Stacy-Ann Buchanan has been courageous and vulnerable in sharing her past experiences with anxiety and suicidal depression. As a result, Ms. Buchanan has landed numerous keynote speaking engagements across North America and the Caribbean. Additionally, her empowering narrative has led to her facilitating multiple workshops that focus on demystifying the stigmas of mental health in the Black and racialized communities across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
Her body of work has firmly pivoted her career on challenging systemic anti-Black racism by taking holistic approaches to dismantle the stigmas of how mental health is constructed. Buchanan’s ultimate objective is to authenticate the Black narrative by raising awareness, directing positive dialogues to fuel resources, and orchestrating safe and constructive spaces for Black voices to be amplified.
Asante Haughton is a mental health advocate devoted to changing the world. He is focused on amplifying the stories of everyday people to illuminate gaps in the system while working to build bridges between community members and policy makers in order to find solutions to challenges together. Asante is the co-founder of the Reach Out Response Network, an organization advocating for non-police led mobile crisis emergency response. Asante is also a 2x TEDx speaker and a CAMH Difference Maker, awarded with the distinction of being one of the top 150 mental health influencers in Canada. When Asante is not speaking and advocating he is designing, managing and facilitating peer support training programs at Stella's Place, a youth mental health service agency in Toronto and hosting the web show, Cypher, which turns peer support stories into original songs by Juno nominated musicians. Young at heart, silly, self-deprecating and able to find a sports analogy for virtually anything, Asante tries not to take himself too seriously despite being engaged in the serious work of changemaking!
Hailey Hechtman is a creative, intentional and purpose-driven social impact leader with a passion for co-creative team development, strength-based program implementation, and collective impact. She has 10 years of experience working in the social services sector with an aim to promote thoughtful leadership and aligned decision-making for mental wellness, disability, and youth organizations. She is a strong communicator with a background in direct service provision that recognizes both the importance of a big-picture perspective and a practical, hands-on philosophy towards creating sustainable change.
Some of her career highlights include founding the Yukon Distress & Support Line, establishing the Yukon Inter-Agency Network on Disability, creating standardized narrative reporting processes for the Yukon Government and spearheading the Learning Essential Support Skills Online (LESSON) program. She recently moved back to Ottawa and has begun her exciting next chapter as the Executive Director for Causeway Work Centre where she can continue to pursue her passion for supporting meaningful community engagement, partnerships and person-centered planning.
About Causeway:
Causeway is a not-for-profit agency that empowers ALL people by helping those with mental illness and other challenges find meaningful work. We have a desire to see people treated with dignity and respect. We believe that there is no limit to anyone’s potential. By leveraging their talents and abilities, we work to shift society’s perspective regarding people whose value has not yet been recognized.