VITAL LINKS: Rallying from Isolation Loneliness & Depression to Connection Contribution & Joy
Speaker Profiles:
Veronica Marshall-Bernard, MSW (student), RSW / Mi' kmaq First Nation, Nova Scotia Health Authority
Veronica Marshall-Bernard is a proud Mi'kmaq mother and grandmother who lives in the Potlotek First Nation. Now a clinical therapist with the Nova Scotia Health Authority, Veronica also helped to establish a cultural camp and mobile crisis teams in various First Nation communities. She advocates for First Nations’ mental health at the provincial, national, and international levels, and sits on the board of the Canadian Association of Suicide Prevention. She hopes one day to branch out into private practice and to expand mobile crisis teams across Nova Scotia.
Veronica’s hero was her father, Alexander Marshall, an addictions counsellor. She loves anything cetacean, along with writing, gardening, and collecting First Nations art and baskets.
Vincent Agyapong, MD, PhD / Psychiatrist, Professor and Researcher, University of Alberta
Dr. Vincent Agyapong is a Clinical Professor and Inaugural Director, Division of Community Psychiatry at the University of Alberta’s Department of Psychiatry. He is also Alberta Health Services’ Edmonton Zone Clinical Section Chief for Community Mental Health. He also served as one of two specialist members on the Health Technology Expert Review Panel on Internet delivered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health. He also served as Mental Health Expert on Disaster Medicine with the Canadian Institute for Health Research Communications and Media Relations Department.
Dr. Agyapong holds two Doctorate degrees; a Research MD in Clinical Psychiatry and a PhD in Global Mental Health, both awarded by the University of Dublin Trinity College in Ireland. In February 2019, he was honored by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada as one of six Extraordinary Fellows of the College, and in July 2019, he was named a finalist by the Alberta Science and Technology Leadership (ASTech) Foundation for the ASTech 2019 Outstanding Health Innovation Award. In addition, Dr Agyapong has had his brain-child, the Text4Mood program, recognized by the Mental Health Innovations Network headquartered at the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.
Mary Bartram, PhD, RSW / Policy Director, Mental Health Commission of Canada
Dr. Mary Bartram has led mental health and substance-use policy development and implementation with federal and territorial governments, Indigenous organizations, and NGOs. She is Policy Director with the Mental Health Commission of Canada and teaches courses in public policy at Carleton University. Most recently she has led a COVID-19 Policy research project on the mental health impacts of the pandemic.
Mary completed her PhD at the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University in 2017, and postdoctoral research at McGill University and the University of Ottawa. Her research focused on a range of issues such as equity in access to psychotherapy, harm reduction in postsecondary settings, and recovery in the mental health and substance use sectors. Mary is a Registered Social Worker and holds an MSc in Family Therapy from Purdue University.
Art Post, Co-Founder / Okanagan Men’s Sheds Association
Art Post helped establish the Okanagan Men’s Sheds Association starting in 2012, and was president from 2013-2017. Following two years at UBC where he studied arts and science, Art earned a Telecom certificate from BC Vocational, now BCIT, where he received trade-specific training. Retired from BC Tel, now Telus, Art worked in the areas of technical and technical support, primarily in the greater Vancouver area. He now lives in Kelowna, BC, and is married with two children and one grandchild.
Tania Dick, RN, BScN, MN-NP / Dzawada'enuxw First Nation, First Nations Health Council of BC
Tania Dick is Kwakwaka'wakw from the Dzawada'enuxw First Nation of Kingcome Inlet in British Columbia. She has been a registered nurse for 18 years working in rural and remote nursing, specializing in emergency and Indigenous health. She is also an adjunct professor with the University of British Columbia. She has served as president-elect of the Association of Registered Nurses of British Columbia.
As an elected representative of the First Nations Health Council of British Columbia, Tania advocates on behalf of 15 Kwakwaka'wakw Nations and provides health and social support for First Nation children, families, and communities. She is also a member of the BC Government-appointed task force called 'In Plain Sight': Addressing Indigenous-specific Racism and Discrimination in BC Health Care.
Osmar Zaiane, PhD / Professor, Department of Computing Science, University of Alberta
Dr. Osmar Zaïane is a computer science professor at the University of Alberta, a Canada CIFAR AI Chair, and scientific director of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii). His Ph.D. thesis focused on web mining and multimedia data mining. He has research interests in data analytics, namely novel data mining algorithms, web mining, text mining, image mining, social network analysis, data visualization, and information retrieval with applications in Health Informatics, e-Learning and e-Business. Osmar has published more than 330 papers in refereed international conferences and journals, and taught on all six continents.
Osmar has acted as an associate editor for multiple journals in his field. From 2009 to 2012, he was secretary-treasurer of the ACM SIGKDD (ACM Special Interest Group on Data Mining), which runs the world’s premier data science, big data, and data mining association and conference. He is also on the steering committee of many data mining conferences such as IEEE International Conference on Data Mining, IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Advanced Analytics, Advanced Data Mining and Applications.
Taylor McKee / Student (UBC Okanagan), Jack.org Speaker, Foundry Volunteer
Taylor McKee is a mixed-race student, advocate, and musician, heading into her third year at UBC, studying music and psychology. She is passionate about mental health, and feels strongly about the need for accessible and culturally relevant mental health resources. She grew up struggling with her mental health and learned the importance of breaking the silence around the topic in high school, which inspired her to get involved in her community.
In 2018, Taylor became involved with Jack.org, an organization that aims to empower young leaders to advocate for mental health in their communities. She became a Jack Talks Speaker, which has given her the opportunity to share her own story and teach others about how they can support mental health at high schools, universities, and community centres. This led her to become the organization’s Network Representative for BC in 2019-2020.
Outside of her work with Jack.org, in 2019 Taylor raised over $15,000 for youth mental health in BC through producing a show called Let’s Face It.
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