For Mental Health, Hope is the Message

Hope will be the message from a mental health professional – and former state hospital patient – who will be speaking in Bradford next week.

Gina Calhoun is the national director of Wellness and Recovery Education at the Copeland Center for Wellness and Recovery and she says she’s going to try to be a stigma-buster during her talk.

She says even some mental health workers need to abandon their way of thinking about people with mental illnesses.

“We don’t know how far people are going to go. We don’t have a crystal ball, so our job is not to categorize those who are going to make it and those who are not,” she said. “Our job is to believe all people can learn and grow, and all people can be active community citizens.”

Calhoun will be speaking at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Harriet B. Wick Chapel at Pitt-Bradford as part of a program presented by Rays of Hope. It’s free and open to the public.

You can hear my conversation with Gina by going to WESB.com/listen, going to the "Local Programs" tab and scrolling down to "LiveLine 10-03-14 Gina Calhoun Rays of Hope."

Copeland Center photo

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