Review of the Partners for Life tour - THE MENTAL ILLNESS FOUNDATION REACHES
700,000 TEENS TO RAISE AWARENESS OF DEPRESSION AND SUICIDE

Thanks to this program, more than 7,000 teens are now being monitored, treated and supported

MONTREAL, Dec. 9 /CNW Telbec/ -The Mental Illness Foundation is proud to report significant results following its Partners for Life campaign in Quebec high schools. Since 1998, the Foundation has visited more than 529 schools and met with some 700,000 students, 8,000 parents and 22,000 caregivers and school support staff. The objective of this provincial tour is to educate and empower teens and their families so they can better recognize the warning signs of depression.

The Partners for Life program in numbers, since it was founded in 1998

• 730,000 Quebecers have been reached including 700,000 youth, 8,000 parents and 22,000 caregivers and school support staff
• 7,000 instances documented of students being monitored and treated for depression after participating in a presentation at their school including 1,000 hospitalizations following the identification of serious suicidal signals
• 529 high schools visited
• 265 cities visited in Quebec

"With this initiative, the Mental Illness Foundation helps break the taboos of depression among young people, and, consequently, it helps save lives. Too often, mental illness is invisible and silent, but its consequences are serious for sufferers, their families and society as a whole," said Dr. Martin Tremblay, internal department head of the Psychiatry Department at the Centre hospitalier universitaire de Montréal (CHUM) and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Mental Illness Foundation.

An internationally renowned program
Many different organizations and healthcare professionals are impressed by the low cost of providing the program as well as the number of students it reached every year (estimated at nearly 60,000). Recently, the Foundation earned praise from the general assembly of the International Federation of Medical Students' Associations (Montreal, August 2010) and the Sixth World Conference on the Promotion of Mental Health and Prevention of Mental and Behavioral Disorders (Washington D.C., November 2010).

About the Mental Illness Foundation
Founded in 1980 by Dr. Yves Lamontagne, the Mental Illness Foundation's mission is to prevent mental illness in order to reduce the suffering of the persons affected by them as well as their loved ones by mobilizing individuals and society as a whole. For more information on the Foundation, mental illness and available resources, please visit the Foundation's website at www.mentalillnessfoundation.org.

For further information:

or to schedule an interview:
Sophie Côté Laplante
Office: 514-843-2376
Mobile: [phone]
[email protected]