Marvin Ross, Publisher/Author of Schizophrenia Books/Documentaries Keynote Speaker at FAME AGM

DUNDAS, Ontario - Sept. 4, 2013 - PRLog -- The Family Association for Mental Health Everywhere (FAME) (http://fameforfamilies.com/) is a Toronto based organization that provides a facilitation of hope, acceptance, recovery and education. They teach family members to embrace self-care and individual responsibility and argue that family members provide ongoing support and connection for many of our life experiences. This is particularly so for persons who are vulnerable or ill.

It is organized for and by families to reduce the stress of coping with mental illness by strengthening and supporting family members in their role as caregivers. They can provide advocacy, education, referrals and counseling to families that have a mentally ill relative of any diagnosis. And, they work hard to ensure that families have a strong voice within their communities. They are based on a self-help model which respects and supports the expertise that families have regarding their mentally ill relative and their experience in the system.

Their annual general meeting is on September 24, 2013 and they have invited Marvin Ross of Bridgeross Communications to be their keynote speaker and to be the recipient of thier 2013 Hall of FAME. For details See http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/25412555



Ross is the author of Schizophrenia Medicine's Mystery Society's Shame which is recommended by the World Fellowship for Schizophrenia and Allied Disorders. He is also a regular blogger on mental illness issues with the Huffington Post Canada. His company, Bridgeross Communications, publishes a number of books on schizophrenia that have all been highly rated and recommended by such groups as the National Alliance on Mental Illness in the US, EUFAMI in Europe and the Mood Disorders Society of Canada. Three of his titles are listed as the top 10 must read books on schizophrenia by the website healthyplace.com.

One of his authors, Sandra Yuen MacKay My Schizophrenic Life: The Road to Recovery From Mental Illness, is the 2012 winner of the Courage To Come Back Award in British Columbia and one of the Faces of Mental Illness in Canada.

Dr Carolyn Dobbins, What A Life Can Be: One Therpaist's Take on Schizo-Affective Disorder, is the winner of the Spirit of the ADA for 2012 in Tennessee and a guest lecturer on mental illness at the Univeristy of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Erin Hawkes, When Quietness Came: A Neuroscientist's Personal Experiences With Schizophrenia, is also a Huffington Post Blogger and has presented the 2013 Clinical Neurosciences Conference at the University of British Columbia as well as to other groups.

Susan Inman, After Her Brain Broke: Helping My Daughter Recover Her Sanity, most recently presented at Grand Rounds at the North York General Hospital in Toronto. She has been keynote speaker at the conference of the Psychiatric Association of Canadian Mental Health Nurses, presented at the NAMI annual conference and  to other organizations. She is also a regular Huffington Post blogger

Sakeenah and Anika Francis, authors of Love's All That Makes Sense A Mother Daughter Memoir on growing up with a mother with schizophrenia, will be giving presentations at Roads to Recovery ’13: A Journey Beyond Medicaid in Cleveland, OH on Sept 16 and then at the 60th Annual Conference of the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Orlando in October.

The latest release is Unfaithful MInd by Marion Gibson on the impact of late onset schizophrenia on a family. Ms Gibson has been featured in The Georgia Straight and has appeared on CBC Radio.

Links to these titles and two documentary films , The Brush, The Pen and Rocovery and Schizophrenia in Focus, can be found at http://www.bridgeross.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCzlarBnM2U