LIFE VOICE AWARDED $5,000 GRANT!
Last night was a pretty big deal for us as an organization. We have been working hard with the Guelph Business Centre over the past 6 months to build a business case that will help us expand our workshop offering.
After creating a business plan through the Starter Company Plus program (which, if you’ve ever done a business plan you know how much work they are!) we had an opportunity to put together a 3 minute presentation for Pitch Night. It’s hard to talk about what we do in 3 minutes, but we did it! And, Life Voice was awarded a $5,000 grant; the highest grant the business centre can give out through this program!
HOPE
We are filled with hope. Not only because we were granted (literally GRANTed) $5,000! But also because of the hopefulness of the judges who awarded us with the highest monetary award from last night’s Pitch Night (and there were many worthy pitchers!) We are hopeful by the hopefulness and confidence they have in us as an organization, and a movement that will help support the rising mental health needs in our community. We are hopeful about how this now enables us to add two new workshops to our portfolio. And, there was another layer of hope that filled us when we shook the hand of one of the three judges in gratitude, and was told “Just keep doing the good work you’re doing.” And that, that is what has filled us with the hope. Because that tells us there are individuals and organizations who understand the importance of what we’re doing. There people who want to be the wind in our sails so we can take this ship to new shores. They believe in what Life Voice stands for, and the impact we are having. For all of these reasons we are so very grateful to the Guelph Business Centre, the Starter Company Plus program, the judges on this panel who saw our vision of things to come, and for the hope you all have for us, and the community we serve.
HOW WILL THE FUNDS BE USED?
These funds will be put towards adding the Compassion Fatigue workshop, and Mental Health First Aid for Adults Interacting with Youth workshop to our portfolio. Both are certified and evidence based. Shawna, our Founder, will attend both trainer workshops to become certified to deliver them starting in the Fall of 2018 for Compassion Fatigue, and by the Spring of 2019 for Mental Health First Aid for Adults Interacting with Youth.
Are you interested in bringing these workshops to your organization?
Get in touch with us here.
THE 3 MINUTE PITCH PRESENTATION
To read our pitch and learn more about how these workshops will help support the mental health of our community, scroll down.
My name is Shawna Percy. I am a TEDxUW speaker, published author, and certified trainer. I run an organization called Life Voice where we provide mental health workshops.
We serve 2 demographics. The first are those from service organizations. The second are everyday people who have been in the role of helping a person in a mental health crisis. 7 years ago I became that person when my first husband went into crisis, and unfortunately suicided. After his death I attended my first safeTALK workshop, followed by the 2 day ASIST suicide intervention skills training. Since then I have done 15 suicide interventions, including the stranger I supported on a Guelph bridge 3 weeks ago, and a local friend who went into crisis last week. All 15 are still alive today. When we know more we can do more. Part of knowing more is learning to care for ourselves as we support others.
Between 40% to 85% of “helping professionals” develop vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue and/or high rates of traumatic symptoms. Vicarious trauma (or second hand trauma) can be passed on to others, including clients to helpers, and parents to children. This can lead to more trauma.
Adults are dealing with a lot. And so are kids. One of the ways were seeing pain expressed these days is through eating disorders and self- injury. ½ million Canadian women aged 15–24 years had an eating disorder. And the rates of self-harm for girls five to 14 has almost doubled over the past 5 years.
For these reasons we would like to add 2 new workshops to our portfolio.
The first workshop is Compassion Fatigue.
The second workshop is Mental Health First Aid for adults who interact with youth.
Both are certified, and evidence-based.
These would be rolled out to our clients and partners like the CMHA and Universities. Their workshop experiences are crucial to our workshop promotion, in addition to our cold calling activities, posting flyers around town, and social media engagement.
A grant of $5,000 will support the addition of these workshops and help us increase our year over year revenue by 84%. We’ll run 11 more workshops in Guelph each year, and this is really important because 99% of Life Voice participants say they feel more ready, willing, and able to help a person in crisis. Which means the more Life Voice trains the more equipped Guelph will be to address our rising mental health needs. A recent study showed 11% of grade 7-12 students seriously considered suicide. 60% said they wanted someone to talk to but didn’t know who to turn to. Through workshops we can learn how to have that conversation. Which is why…
…a $5,000 grant is more than funding for Life Voice. This grant is an investment in the mental health and safety of our kids, our co-workers, and our community.
I’D LIKE TO SUPPORT THE WORK LIFE VOICE IS DOING
If you’d like to support the work of Life Voice through a grant, funding to support our suicide interventions (which we don’t get paid for, but feel privileged to do,) providing space for workshops, or partnering with us in some other creative capacity get in touch with us here.
Together we can achieve more for the wellbeing of our communities.