Petition: Take Action on Mental Health
Together, we can strengthen the ability of Albertans to overcome the toxic stress caused by COVID-19 by adopting trauma-informed care across all Alberta Government ministries.
Take action by signing this petition.
To:
Premier Jason Kenney
Minister of Health, Tyler Shandro
Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, Mike Ellis
Minister of Education, Adriana LaGrange
Minister of Community and Social Services, Jason Luan
Minister of Children’s Services, Rebecca Schulz
Minister of Finance (Public Service Commission), Travis Toews
Minister of Seniors and Housing, Josephine Pon
Minister of Labour and Immigration, Jason Copping
Minister of Justice, Kaycee Madu
The global pandemic has impacted the emotional, physical, financial, and social well-being of all Albertans. It has revealed the need to address the mental health challenges we face while building the mental health resilience of all Albertans. To do this, policy decisions and services provided by the Alberta Government need to be based on an understanding of brain science, how to build resilience, and the impacts of unpredictable and prolonged stress on our bodies(trauma). This science teaches us the importance of building mental wellness and resilience from a young age and the need to adopt trauma-informed policy and practices.
As part of the recovery process and for the long-term benefit of all Albertans, we call on the Government of Alberta to
- Implement trauma-informed care across all appropriate ministries, departments and service offerings and begin by making trauma-informed care training a part of mandatory staff training in every branch of service delivery within the Government of Alberta.
- That the Ministries of Health and Education work together to implement a collaborative mental health framework for early intervention, prevention and teaching mental wellness in our schools that includes:
- Comprehensive whole-school approaches to mental health for K-12 focusing on the wellbeing of students, staff and families
- Sustainable funding for trained mental health coordinators for each school (1 per 1000 students) to implement strategies and bridge services from across sectors.
Sincerely,
Your Name
Take Action: Policing in Calgary
The uncovering of the bodies of 215 children at the Kamloops school, uncovers the reality that the history of policing in Canada has been a history where Indigenous peoples have experienced the police as a force that has taken their children and has failed to protect Indigenous people. Even when children have died, there was no investigation or prosecution of those how committed these crimes.
We are calling on the Calgary Police to stop delaying and hire nine Indigenous liaison officers, one for each district, and provide adequate support to ensure that the culture of policing changes to one that protects indigenous peoples and communities.
Over-policing and under-protection are considered key issues underlying missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
Vital to addressing this, is assisting the police to develop better cultural competencies, understanding of the impacts of colonization and better relationships with indigenous communities. The factor that can shift this is to ensure that each district office has an indigenous liaison officer. Currently, there is only one Indigenous Liaison officer in a city of 1.2M which is inadequate.
We are asking you to write:
- Calgary Police Commission - [email protected]
- Superintendent Asif Rashid - [email protected]
- Deputy Chief Katie McLellan - [email protected]
- Chief Constable Mark Neufeld – [email protected]
- City Councillors - [email protected]
- Mayor Nenshi – [email protected]
Sample Text:
The uncovering of the bodies of 215 children at the Kamloops Residential School, reminds us that the history of policing in Canada has been a history where Indigenous peoples have experienced the police as a violent force that has frequently taken their children away while simultaneously failing to protect Indigenous people. Even when children died in care, there was not an investigation or prosecution to discover their causes of death.
We are calling on the Calgary Police to stop delaying and to hire nine Indigenous Liaison Officers, one for each district, and also to provide adequate support to ensure that the culture of policing changes is one that protects Indigenous peoples and their communities.
Signed,
Your Name