This is Headstrong (Fiona Haynes)

Diploma in Humanistic Counselling Theory & Practice

Fiona Haynes is a mom, wife and works with the Mental Health Commission of Canada. She has a lifetime of family and personal experience with mental illness. Fiona knows first hand the experience of living with mental illness and childhood trauma, and parenting a beloved child through their own experiences of mental illness and suicide crisis. Always interested in people, Fiona trained and worked as a counsellor and suicide interventionist. Fiona worked with an organization called ‘No Limits’ in the UK, with youth aged 11-25 needing help and support with all aspects of their lives, and discovered the power of contact education – where people with lived experience share their stories to help and inspire others. Immigrating to Canada in 2008, Fiona worked with the Schizophrenia Society of Alberta in their contact education program for five years, becoming Provincial Program Manager. Since March 2016, she’s been with the HEADSTRONG program at the Commission, a youth leadership program for mental health that is a successful national and newly international initiative. Fiona is currently developing a new education program focused on caregivers of children and youth with a research team from the University of Calgary.

Why does mental health matter to you?

“There’s nothing more important to me than that people, especially young people know that they matter, that people care and help is here. Mental health is health.”