Let’s Talk Mental Health: Tending to our mental health as advocacy practitioners

On Monday, 19 February 2024, from 12:00pm-1:30pm (New York time) JCoR hosted special guest Bekah Sears, who led us in an education session titled, Let’s Talk Mental Health: Tending to our mental health as advocacy practitioners. This webinar approached the topic of mental health with a faith perspective. It aimed to increase awareness of the mental health impacts of working in the advocacy sector, address the question of how to recognize our current state of mental health, and provide strategies for responding to our mental health needs. View the event flyer here.

Click on the following links to access the presentation slides, a recording of this event, and a list of additional resources.

 

Rebekah (Bekah) Sears has spent her career, thus far, in the non-profit sector, working for justice and helping to amplify the voices of people experiencing marginalization and oppression. She is both passionate about serving others and supporting her mental health and that of her colleagues in the non-profit sector, recognizing the toll this work can take. She is currently the Lived Experience Specialist with the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), National Office. In this role Bekah works to infuse the work of CMHA National with the perspectives of People with Lived Experience (PWLE) of a mental illness(es) or substance use health issues. Before joining CMHA in May 2023, Bekah spent almost 12 years with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), working in Winnipeg, Canada; Bogota, Colombia; and almost 8 years in Ottawa, Canada. In her role with MCC in Ottawa, Bekah advocated to the Canadian Parliament for peace and climate justice on behalf of MCC partners around the world. In addition to living and working in Colombia, Bekah has also lived and worked in Rwanda (serving with a local NGO, African Enterprise), and has visited projects and supported MCC partners in fragile and conflict-affected states in the Caribbean, SubSaharan Africa and the Middle East. She currently lives in Ottawa Ontario, near the Rideau River, with her cocker spaniel Rosie.

 
To learn more about Bekah‘s perspective on mental health and the nonprofit sector, we encourage you to read these two pieces that she published in recent years: