Sharing lived experience with mental illness or mental health challenges is both difficult and courageous, especially when speaking to a group of your peers. It’s also meant to be a positive experience for the individual sharing. To ensure that happens, providing proper speaker support for someone looking to share their lived experience is necessary and important. You want them to feel safe, supported and confident when their moment arrives.

Speaker support isn’t a straightforward process, so for a more detailed and in-depth look at best practices we suggest you refer to the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) Headstrong Toolkit for Training Speakers.

Sharing your personal story of mental illness or mental health challenges is a difficult and courageous feat. If you or someone close to you is thinking of sharing their story for the first time, congratulations! Stories of personal experience, hope and recovery are often the most impactful aspects of youth summit events and go a long way in changing the stigma that surrounds mental health.

Sharing your personal story is a process that begins long before the day you choose to speak, and in order to feel comfortable with that process we suggest you take a look through the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) Headstrong Sharing Your Story toolkit.

You can find guiding questions, exercises and helpful information to guide you through this process. Sharing your personal story is supposed to be a positive experience for you, and going through the preparation process can help make that possible.

The MHCC Headstrong Summit Planning toolkit will help you design, coordinate, and implement a regional summit. It provides you with information regarding the roles of the coordinator, speakers, students and community organizations. It is based on the Mental Health Commission of Canada’s Opening Minds’ anti-stigma research which shows that contact-based education will improve students’ knowledge, attitudes and intended behaviours towards those living with a mental illness or mental health problem.