Mental Health and Wellness Committee
Meeting October 24, 2013
In attendance: Ruth-Anne Morris, Sarah Field, Janice Wells, Deanna Durnford, Melissa Randell, Bob
Davies, Cindy Ng, Velma Whitlock, Ken Marchand, Ecology Action Centre: Caroline King
We introduced all of the members we are happy to have a number of new members this year!
Bob Davies: We are so excited to have Basinview’s first Guidance Counsellor! Bob described his role at
Basinview. He has so much to offer the students, staff and parents at Basinview and we are so lucky to have him at the school and our committee.
Caroline King works for the Ecology Action Centre in school travel planning. We are very happy to have her on our committee. She described her role with the EAC and explained that If we needed a sidewalk, crossing guard, etc she is the person we contact. She would act as a facilitator in putting us in contact with the appropriate people etc. She is interested in working with us on a number of issues including how we get more students walking to school. We also briefly discussed the lack of sidewalks heading to the new CPA high school. Caroline said the person to contact was Hanita Koblents (the Active
Transportation Coordinator with HRM). She will get us her contact info. We all agreed how important it was for students to walk to school for many reasons including physical and mental health.
Ruth-Anne Morris announced she will no longer be the public health nurse for our school due to provincial government cutbacks which take affect this Dec. Ruth-Anne will be a member of our committee until December until she begins her new job with the board. It will be a huge loss for the committee and our school. I think it would be a great idea for committee members to send an email to
MLA Kelly Regan encouraging her to ask her government to overturn this decision. Her email can be found online.
Sarah and Janice attended the Academy in School Mental Health seminar for two days this past June.
Stan Kutcher was one of the main speakers. Sarah and Janice told us it was a very informative session although they both said they expressed their concern during the session that not enough was being done at the elementary level. We agreed that mental health issues need to be addressed at the elementary level and not just in Junior High and High School.
Sarah and Cindy would like to have an info night for parents called “what’s in your child’s lunch box”.
Cindy expressed her concern about what children are bringing to school. Cindy is applying for a grant to help pay for an info session and she has already been in touch with Wendy MacAllum. We are hoping
Wendy will come to our school to talk with parents. Cindy currently cooks with her primary children and is applying for a number of grants to help offset costs. We look forward to discussing this further at our next meeting.
Bob also mentioned that Tilak Arora (YMCA support worker at Bedford South) would come to our school to talk about culture and food. Caroline said there is a food committee within the ecology action center that she would put us in touch with.

Ken Marchand told us about “We Day”. “We Day” is an international movement that empowers young people to make change. Halifax will be hosting a “we day” this year! Ken explained that you can’t buy tickets to “we day” you have to earn tickets by to committing to a year of change. Students have to make one local change and one global change. Grade 6-12 students participate. Our Grade 6 teachers have committed to this exciting project. We can go online and Google “we day” to watch a 3min video. The event will be held Nov 27 in Halifax. Basinview will show it live that day… likely in the gym.
Bob briefly talked about the comprehensive guidance program and will explain more at our next meeting in November.
ACTIONS:
All members are encouraged to send an email to MLA Kelly Regan encouraging her ask her government to overturn the decision to cut public health nurses from the elementary schools.
Caroline to forward contact info for Hanita Koblents (the Active Transportation Coordinator with HRM) to the committee.
All members are asked to go online and Google “we day” and watch the 3min video about the Nov 27 event.
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