From Where We Stand: Conversations on race and mental health

In our final episode, we are shining the spotlight on the mental health of the BIPOC LGBTQ+ community. According to Rainbow Health Ontario, LGBTQ2S+ people experience stigma and discrimination, and this stigma can have a variety of negative consequences throughout the life span. Large Canadian studies indicate that LGBTQ2S+ people are more likely than heterosexuals to report unmet mental health needs and were more likely to consult...

Canada’s Indian residential school system opened in the 1800s but the legacy of those schools is evident even today showing up in high poverty rates, over-representation of Indigenous children in foster care, a disproportionate number of Indigenous people in the prison system and hundreds of missing and murdered Indigenous women. And echoing what the community has been saying for a long time, since May of this year, more than...

According to a report by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, more than half of children under the age of 15 in foster care in Canada, are Indigenous. Being a foster child, and especially a racialized foster child, comes with its own set of challenges including stigma, lack of resources, navigating placements with different foster families and the impact on mental health including post-traumatic stress disorder, panic, anxiety diso...

Men within the BIPOC community face unique barriers when it comes to taking care of their mental health. Whether it’s cultural stigma or orthodox definitions of masculinity, men have historically shied away from seeking help for their mental health but experiences with racism, micro-aggressions and police brutality are just some of the factors impacting BIPOC men. For example, Indigenous men have a suicide rate that is double...

Hate crimes have been on the rise across Canada, with a 9% increase in anti-Muslim attacks in 2019 compared to the previous year. And with Muslim women, especially visibly Muslim women, being the target of hate, violence and discrimination, we are looking at the impacts of these traumas on the Muslim community’s mental health. In this episode we speak with author & mental health advocate Shaimaa Kraba, as she recounts bei...

Canada recently announced that it planned to welcome a little more than 400 thousand immigrants in 2021 to become permanent residents. But if you are racially marginalized, what is it like to start a new life in a new country? What are some of the barriers to navigate especially when it comes to taking care of mental health? In this episode you’ll hear from Arzoo Multani, a young South-Asian woman who had to deal with the rac...