Job Description
Through its core values of Courage, Respect and Excellence, CAMH is implementing its Strategic Plan: Connected CAMH, to transform lives, ignite innovation and discovery, revolutionize education and drive social change. CAMH is more than a hospital, it is a cause. CAMH is on a mission to change the way society thinks about and responds to mental illness. They aim to eliminate prejudice and discrimination and shape a world where mental illness is central to our healthcare system – a world where Mental Health is Health.
To learn more about CAMH, please visit their website at: www.camh.ca.
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On November 30, 2024, 9-8-8 was launched in Canada as a new national three-digit number for suicide prevention and emotional distress. In 2022, CAMH was announced as the lead for the coordination and administration of 9-8-8, and has acted in this capacity to lead and coordinate the implementation of 9-8-8 and manage the operations and post-launch activities. As of November 2023, this ground-breaking new service is available 24/7/365, in English and French, and accessible to everyone from coast to coast to coast. CAMH is working closely with the federal government and key partners from different groups and communities, provinces, territories and building on our work on Talk Suicide Canada, to deliver this high quality, evidence-based, equitable suicide prevention service to Canada. People with personal and family experiences related to suicide have been crucial champions of 9-8-8: Suicide Crisis Helpline from the earliest phases of advocating for a three-digit number to serve all people in Canada, and have served as leaders in co-creating and implementing 9-8-8. We continue to prioritize embedding equitable lived experience and family engagement in the heart of all we do to continue delivering, evaluating, and improving 9-8-8 services.
9-8-8: Suicide Crisis Helpline is seeking two full-time, contract (until March 31, 2026) Engagement Coordinators to engage people with lived experience in all work streams that collaborate on 9-8-8. The Engagement Coordinators will engage people with lived experience in all aspects of CAMH’s efforts to coordinate and continuously improve 9-8-8. This includes working closely with colleagues coordinating all aspects of 9-8-8 within CAMH (e.g., education, evaluation/research, communications, service quality, and technology) as well as 9-8-8’s network partners (organizations across Canada that partner to provide 9-8-8 services). The Engagement Coordinators will work closely with the 9-8-8 Lived Experience Advisory Team, which is a core team of Community Member Advisors from across Canada who draw on their experiences to co-create an accessible and equitable 9-8-8: Suicide Crisis Helpline by working to ensure that voices of lived and living experiences meaningfully shape 9-8-8. In addition, the Engagement Coordinators will liaise with 9-8-8’s growing Community Member Advisor Network of hundreds of people who have personal and/or family lived experiences related to suicide and have expressed interest in advising 9-8-8.
The Engagement Coordinators will report to the Research Manager of 9-8-8: Suicide Crisis Helpline, and will work very closely with other leaders within 9-8-8, especially the Manager of 9-8-8 Partnerships and Strategy, and other work stream leads as needed.
In this role, the Engagement Coordinators will be responsible for tasks including, but not limited to:
- Coordinating the activities of the Lived Experience Advisory Team and the Community Member Advisor Network
- Continuing to refine the co-creation of 9-8-8’s engagement model, as well as implementing, administering, evaluating and improving our approach.
- Working collaboratively with all members of the 9-8-8 team (e.g., in education, communications, research/evaluation, service quality, leadership, network partners, the Lived Experience Advisory Team, the Community Member Advisor Network, other staff, and community partners).
- Leading the development of engagement projects and facilitating related activities
- Supporting a wide variety of communications about our work such as: social media engagement; blogging/newsletter writing; documenting meeting minutes and sharing highlights tailored to various stakeholders; overseeing the development of interactive and accessible presentations; workshops and on-line and print resources; reporting on projects; conference/educational presentations; proposals; project management and related tracking documents; and manuscripts.
- Continuously building their own and others’ awareness of how our work relates to improving access, literacy, health literacy, social inclusion e.g., by prioritizing plain language communication while partnering with a wide range of stakeholders
- Working with various advisors and stakeholders to share knowledge, and co-create recommendations and solutions to support 9-8-8 initiatives, and other selected projects within our broader department as required.
- Teaching prospective co-facilitators about effective engagement and facilitation.
- Using participatory action strategies involving robustly engaging diverse advisors in co-creation/co-design projects, interviews, focus groups and other user-centered modalities.
- Co-creating ongoing evaluation and continuous improvement approaches reflecting both the priorities of the 9-8-8’s leadership and people with personal and/or family lived experience.
- Applying strategies that support equity and inclusion of people with lived experience.
- Strategizing with various project teams to select appropriate tactics for facilitating meaningful engagement of people with lived experience in each new initiative
- Corresponding with the Lived Experience Advisory Team to communicate about engagement opportunities, and co-facilitate engaging them in a range of ways (e.g., team meetings, co-creation workshops, working groups, email and survey feedback),
- Supporting periodic communications with and engagements involving the Community member Advisor Network
- Recruiting and onboarding new advisors as needed
- Helping advisors to uphold team norms, and following team processes to escalate challenging issues appropriately while adhering to CAMH and 9-8-8 policies (e.g., regarding safety, privacy)
- supporting clear record keeping relating to tracking engagement initiatives, and other administrative and engagement tasks as required
You will support a workplace that embraces diversity, that relies on teamwork and effective collaboration and that complies with all applicable regulatory and legislative requirements. This position is located at 60 White Squirrel Way, with travel between sites, as necessary.
Job Requirements
The successful candidates will have at least 3 years of experience working as a facilitator and lead engagement facilitator within a participatory action and/or lived experience engagement setting, or 5 years of experience working within a peer support setting, or another setting where lived experience as a recipient of mental health and/or addiction services is a core component, combined with proven expertise in facilitating lived experience focus/consultation/advisory groups and integrating the input of people with lived experience.
- Strong familiarity with services relating to suicide prevention is required, with preference given to candidates who have experience collaborating with the crisis line sector on lived experience engagement.
- Professional-level project coordination and verbal and written communication skills are required.
- Demonstrated experience supporting engagement on highly sensitive subject matter such as suicide prevention, and in applying strategies to manage your own wellbeing while doing so (working closely with senior team members to apply related strategies)
- high-level communication skills, including both oral and written communications, especially as they are applied to plain language writing and editing.
- Demonstrated experience drafting a wide range of effective communications that will be required for this role (see tasks above)
- Proven experience of working within a co-creation model, where power-sharing and inclusion are integral to the success of the project, is required.
- Demonstrated experience conducting lived experience engagement in complex long-term projects in partnership with advisors of all ages and in a wide variety of settings is preferred.
- Expertise in working within participatory action methods and/or patient-oriented research/evaluation is highly desirable.
- Demonstrated experience upholding policies to protect privacy and safety of advisors and colleagues
- While fundamentally being a collaborator within a large team, the ideal candidate will be able to independently execute the implementation and scale-up of lived experience engagement in collaboration with all work streams of 9-8-8: Suicide Crisis Helpline
- Demonstrated experience working within teams that involve engaging and activating people with lived experience along with people with other types of expertise including suicide prevention and crisis line professionals and volunteers, researchers, digital developers, editors, graphic designers, external funders and project managers.
- Proven experience as both a facilitator and as a facilitation trainer.
- Understanding and appreciation of systemic and personal privilege related to diversity, with ability to work with stakeholders of diverse identities and ethno-racial and cultural backgrounds is required.
- The successful candidate will have sound knowledge of inclusive environments and will support and implement anti-oppressive and anti-racist best practices in the workplace.
- Demonstrated experience applying key practices in promoting equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility within lived experience engagement and co-creation.
- Expertise in working with web-based technologies is preferred.
- Bilingualism (French/English) and/or proficiency in a second language would be an asset.
- This role will require travel and some evening hours.
- The successful candidate will have personal lived experience as a recipient of mental health, addictions and/or crisis services, or personal lived experiences of challenges related to mental health and/or addictions.
The candidate will support a healthy workplace that embraces diversity, encourages teamwork and complies with all applicable and regulatory requirements.
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