Honouring the Past, Shaping the future

This past week I was delighted to attend the 25th anniversary celebration of Ontario’s Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office (PPAO). Downtown Toronto’s Delta Chelsea played host to the gathering of consumer survivors, policymakers, human rights leaders, mental health advocates, and friends old and new to honour the service of an agency who has been at the forefront of patients’ rights for the past quarter century.

In addition to the history of progress and vision statements presented, one of the big highlights of the event was the launch of what will likely be remembered as a groundbreaking report titled “Honouring the Past, Shaping the Future: 25 years of progress in mental health advocacy and rights protection”.

It’ll take me a little while to get through it all, but this collection of over 100 insightful articles from consumers, advocates, political figures, physicians and lawyers already appears to be an important read for anybody with an interest in understanding recovery from mental illness and in shaping the systemic changes of tomorrow.

The report can be downloaded from the PPAO’s website, at: http://www.ppao.gov.on.ca/