Education Day is only two months away!
Our 2023 Education Day is just two months away! Our theme this year is Community, Connection and Caring: Strategies for building Resilience and Wellness. We invite you to gather together and join us on May 17th at Pier 21 in Halifax for full day of education, networking, and skill-building supporting the mental health and resiliency of those who keep us healthy and safe.
Helping those who keep us healthy and safe.
Education day is for anyone who works to keep others healthy and safe. Some immediate examples that come to mind include healthcare professionals, public safety personnel, military personnel, counsellors, doctors, health & safety personnel… the list could go on. What they all have in common is they are constantly putting others first, often at the sacrifice of their own well-being.
Our Education Day provides an opportunity to connect with others that share these challenges and learn tools and strategies to protect and improve mental health from people who have dedicated their lives, careers and legacies to helping those who are always helping others.
We have you in Mind.
The mental health and wellbeing of people who work to keep others healthy and safe is greatly impacted by the challenging situations they face. Over the past few years, the landscape of mental health and wellness has significantly changed, bringing to light the need for new tools, strategies, and approaches to support those working the frontline. It is more important than ever to provide support with effective strategies for resilience and wellness.
Learn to support and protect your mental health.
Our panel of speakers will help you discover the tools and strategies you can use to protect yourself and the important people in your life.
Learn more about our presenters and topics for Education Day.
Connect with others who share and understand your mental health struggles.
Our hope is that participants who attend Education Day will leave with a sense of hope and understanding that they don't have to walk this difficult mental health journey alone. They will learn resiliency techniques to help them navigate their mental health battles, while creating meaningful connections with those who can relate and offer support along the way. With mental health professionals, mental health advocates, and peers walking similar healing journeys in attendance, Halifax Education Day provides an opportunity for individuals to find comfort in knowing they are not alone and come away feeling empowered and armed with strategies.
JOIN US FOR EDUCATION DAY 2023:
COMMUNITY, CONNECTION AND CARING - STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING RESILIENCE AND WELLNESS
MAY 17, 2023
CANADIAN MUSEUM OF IMMIGRATION at PIeR 21 - HALIFAX, NS
Presented by:
The Tema Foundation is proud to present a full day of education, networking, and skill-building that focuses on making mental health healthier. This in-person event features keynote speakers who have dedicated their time and energy to helping those who keep us healthy & safe.
Education Day 2023: Dr Belinda Seagram and Joanna Lockhart - Managing Stress for Long Term Resiliency
Dr. Belinda Seagram (L) and Joanna Lockhart (R)
The Tema Foundation is pleased to welcome Dr Belinda Seagram and Joanna Lockhart to present at Education Day 2023: Community, Connection and Caring: Strategies for Building Resilience and Wellness.
Meet Dr. Belinda Segram
Dr. Seagram is a registered clinical psychologist with a Ph.D. from York University and more than 20 years of combined experience in clinical practice, research, teaching and supervision.
Belinda has extensive experience working with high-risk teenagers in residential, hospital and community-based settings. She has served as the Executive Director of a shelter and resource centre for abused women and children in Northumberland County, Ontario. Between 2000 and 2006, Belinda was employed by the Correctional Service of Canada where she served as Acting Chief Psychologist in a medium-security penitentiary for federal offenders. She then spent four years with the Pine River Institute, a residential treatment program for adolescents struggling with serious substance abuse, in the capacity of Wilderness Therapist, Clinical Director and consultant.
Belinda has delivered training programs for the Crisis Negotiation Team of the Ontario Provincial Police and was involved in forensic investigations in Ontario and Nunavut. In 2008, a family move brought Belinda to Nova Scotia where she has worked with youth in custody, and served as a consultant in coordinating the trauma response for the survivors of the shipwrecked Concordia, based out of Lunenburg.
Meet JoannA Lockhart
After 20 years as a Nova Scotia paramedic and now a Registered Counselling Therapist, Joanna brings a unique understanding and shared experiences with emergency services, first responders and health care professionals. She is particularly interested in the impact of trauma and PTSD, building resiliency and social support to help foster overall mental health and wellness.
Learn from Dr Belinda Seagram and Joanna Lockhart at Education Day 2023
The call to serve comes from deep within. Working as a first responder/military member can be an incredibly rewarding profession that comes with inherent risks. The strategies we employ to manage stress, although effective in the short term can serve as risk factors to subsequent injury; the ability to compartmentalize emotions is both adaptive and essential in high-risk work. Repeated exposure to trauma can create a backlog of unprocessed experiences, evidenced through the emergence of unwelcomed symptoms. Having tools to gauge the cumulative effects of stress is essential for developing long-term resiliency. Whether at work or in recovery, knowing how to assess our level of central nervous system activation is integral to maintaining long-term health.
JOIN US FOR EDUCATION DAY 2023:
COMMUNITY, CONNECTION AND CARING - STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING RESILIENCE AND WELLNESS
MAY 17, 2023
CANADIAN MUSEUM OF IMMIGRATION At PieR 21 - HALIFAX, NS
Presented by:
The Tema Foundation is proud to present a full day of education, networking, and skill-building that focuses on making mental health healthier. This in-person event features keynote speakers who have dedicated their time and energy to helping those who keep us healthy & safe.
Education Day 2023 Keynote Speaker - Daniel Sundahl: Post-Traumatic Growth
Daniel Sundahl (DanSun) is a published artist and writer with three (3) art books produced of his works. Articles of his work are featured in Canadian Paramedicine, Journal of Emergency Medicine (JEMS), Fire Rescue Magazine, EMS One, EMS World Magazine, The Canadian Journal of Emergency Nursing and the Finnish magazine Asystole. His art is recognized worldwide, and he travels internationally, speaking about his art and personal experiences with occupational stress injuries and post-traumatic growth. He is an advanced care paramedic, pre-hospital educator, retired firefighter, photographer and photo editor.
Daniel was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Taking up a global residency as an English language teacher in Egypt, Mexico, Indonesia and Japan, he now works full-time as an artist, photo editor and public speaker. Daniel became a full-time paramedic and firefighter in 2003 and retired from his full-time position in 2022. He is now enrolled in a two-year counselling therapist program and will graduate in 2024 as a registered counselling therapist with the Canadian Professional Counselling Association.
His love of photography began during his travels, and as his technique developed, he produced a blend of photography and graphic art, which he calls Photo Art.
Copyright Daniel Sundahl / Dan Sun Photo Art
The majority of Daniel's work involves emergency services photography. It comprises an emotional connection to the artist as most of his pieces are based on actual emergency calls he has attended as a paramedic and firefighter. He is passionate about reducing the stigma of PTSD for first responders and uses his art to raise awareness of occupational stress injuries worldwide.
Join us at education day 2023 and attend daniel’s keynote presentation: Post Traumatic Growth – Finding Benefits within Challenges
Post-traumatic growth is more than recovering, it is about reconfiguration and becoming a better person than you were before the injury occurred. My journey from battling my demons to purging my nightmares in artwork is shared through images based on calls I have attended as a paramedic and firefighter. I will share how my job nearly destroyed my life and, although this is my story, you may connect with them through your own experiences and realize you are not alone in how you are feeling. More importantly, I will share what I did, and continue to do, to build resiliency and recover from my mental stresses. If I can do it, so can you.
- Daniel Sundahl
Join us for Education Day 2023:
Community, Connection and Caring - Strategies for Building Resilience and Wellness
MAY 17, 2023
CANADIAN MUSEUM OF IMMIGRATION at PieR 21 - HALIFAX, NS
Presented by:
The Tema Foundation is proud to present a full day of education, networking, and skill-building that focuses on making mental health healthier. This in-person event features keynote speakers who have dedicated their time and energy to helping those who keep us healthy & safe.
Outstanding Women on the Frontlines: Kristen Tynes
The Tema Foundation is proud to kick off International Women’s week by highlighting some of the phenomenal, driven and passionate women working towards healthier mental health. Welcome to our second year of our Outstanding Women on the Frontlines Series!
Kristen Tynes, Executive Director, Maintenance Enforcement & Victim Services
Kristen has more than 25 years of experience in education, public policy, communications and journalism. Her career began as a journalist, moving into tv, print and radio, spending over a decade telling peoples' stories. After a brief time teaching high school her interests moved to Communications leading to her current ED position with Maintenance Enforcement and Victim Services.
“I've always wanted to work with people, helping them to find and then share their voice, especially those whose voices have been suppressed. As I became a manager of people I fell in love with creating strong, healthy resilient teams and safe and inclusive workplaces. This became my favourite part of the work and resulted in performance improvements in my team. I believe it is at the core of what we do.”
Kristen is also a member of the African Canadian Women in the Public Service Peer Support team, which was just recently created in collaboration with The Tema Foundation. During her time as a journalist and teacher, she worked with people struggling with mental health and witnessed how much it affects someone's daily life. Through this work she also became aware of how few people understand mental health and the lack of support that was available for those in need.
Creating Safe and Inclusive Spaces
Creating safe and inclusive environments for vulnerable Nova Scotians has been the cornerstone of Kristen's passionate work. This includes her work at the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development from 2018-2020, where she led the government's response to the Commission on Inclusive Education and oversight of the development and implementation of the new Inclusive Education Strategy and model. She also played a key role leading the development of the back-to-school plan in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She has proudly supported her staff with MEVS, this includes open and accessible communication, compassionate and empathetic human resources and leadership approaches and the development of a staff wellness plan.
Never taking her impressive accomplishments for granted, Kristen has expressed her deep gratitude for the women who have helped ignite her spark.
“I hate to sound cliche, but my greatest female inspirations really are the women of colour who have come before me, making my success possible. This includes my mother and aunts who faced even greater obstacles and remained resilient and supportive of each other. It also includes the women of colour today who are colleagues. They have also faced many barriers and are constantly looking around them to see who needs a hand up. A final famous example is Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's former leader, who has shown the world how a compassionate, empathetic, feminine style of leadership is actually stronger and gets better results.”
Prioritizing caring for yourself so you can care for others
The importance of leading healthy and resilient teams ensures Kristen takes time for her own mental health and self-care. “I care for my mental health by ensuring regular connections with the people in my life who nourish my soul. This includes my husband, kids, dog, friends and family. Regular contact with them sprinkled with quiet time on my own keeps me healthy and grounded. I'm also a sharer. When I'm stressed I need to talk things through with someone. I find people I feel safe with and share. I also remind myself that I'm part of something bigger than myself. This can sometimes help me understand how big or small my issue is and remind me that there is help out there.”
Surround yourself with people who support you
Her advice carries through to young women who are deciding their own path into the frontlines. Kristen stresses the importance of having your people. The ones you trust and feel safe with, the ones who truly support you – in both your personal and professional lives.
“My advice would be to build those circles, and stay away from those who claim to be, but are competitive and undermining. Having supporters in your corner and supporting others will carry you when times are tough.”
Kristen usually unwinds from the day by spending time with friends and family, doing yoga, meditating or walking with her dog.
Outstanding Women on the Frontlines: Dana Bowden
The Tema Foundation is proud to kick off International Women’s week by highlighting some of the phenomenal, driven and passionate women working towards healthier mental health. Welcome to our second year of our Outstanding Women on the Frontlines Series!
Today we are pleased to introduce Dana Bowden, Director, NS Department of Justice, Victim Services.
Dana has spent 24 years in Justice, with impressive positions ranging from a Correctional Officer, Probation Officer, Investigator of Public Safety for Cyberbullying, Manager of Special Initiatives for Victims (Victim Services), and rounding out the past three years as Director of Victim Services.
Recently, Dana has begun work with the Tema Foundation after signing on as a Peer Support Advisor for the African Canadian Women in the Public Service of Nova Scotia. Recognizing that mental health can be affected by experiences faced on the frontlines, Dana makes an effort to practice self-care and support her colleagues and staff’s wellness.
“Early in my career mental health was taboo and was not discussed or acceptable to discuss. People suffered in silence. Now wellness and mental health is recognized as important in addressing the needs of employees. There is so much more support available for employees.”
Blazing a trail for African Nova Scotian Women in the Public Sector
In her tenure, Dana has been a trailblazer and inspiration for many African Nova Scotian women. She was one of the first African Nova Scotian female Correctional Officers in Nova Scotia to work exclusively with males. Dana was also the first African NS Manager and Director in Victim Services. During her time with Canada's first Cyberbullying unit, she was one of five original investigators hired for the position, and the only African Nova Scotian. It was in that position that she was the first Cyberbullying Investigator to take a file to the Supreme Court and be granted an Protection Order under the now defunct Cyberbullying Act in Nova Scotia.
“When I entered Corrections 24 years ago, I was one of a handful of Correctional Officers who worked in the male units of the Correctional Facility. There were both staff and inmates who initially treated me differently than some of my colleagues. I would say I certainly had to work a lot harder to gain their respect than my male colleagues.”
Celebrating women and their important contributions to Society
Dana views International Women’s Day as an “opportunity to recognize and pay tribute to the amazing contributions and work of women in our professional and personal lives that have and continue to pave the way for the women in our younger generations to thrive. it's always such a great reminder of the importance of women and our daily contributions to society.” She’s proud to say her mother taught her that she can do anything that she may choose to with some hard work and a positive attitude, and that she’s still her greatest role model today.
For young women on the frontlines seeking advice on entering the industry, Dana shares her words of wisdom:
“There are going to be some difficult days and some great days, that is a reality. Focus on your goal. Ensure you have a good network of support to lean on. This work is not easy and can take a toll without you even realizing it. Celebrate even the smallest of achievements!”
Taking time for self care
In her busy schedule, Dana ensures that she makes time to care for her mental health – even if it’s as simple as keeping your body moving so you have space to clear your mind. “I have worked daily exercise into my routine, ensuring I get an average of 13-14 thousand steps a day, so that I am not idle. This allows me to turn my brain off at times so that I am not overthinking.”
When Dana isn’t on the go, she enjoys spending time with her husband of 30 years, sitting in a room together watching mindless tv shows, enjoying their hot tub and playing board games. She does also enjoy having dinner with friends occasionally, but really appreciates and values her ‘alone time’ to refuel.