A Kelowna based start-up is “creating brave spaces in workplaces and classrooms to elevate community, human equality and equity.”
Nine Rising, founded by Kathleen MacKinnon provides consulting programs and services in schools, businesses and organizations to create safe spaces for mental differences and mental health improvement.
“This is a call to action to shift power-dynamics to marginalized populations, I do a lot of consulting in schools with emotional literacy, character education and on self esteem,” said MacKinnon, the CEO.
MacKinnon began working with youth 10 years ago and went on to study psychology and gender studies at the University of Alberta before moving to Kelowna to start shaping her mental health education empire.
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“I was working in different institutions and realized that there was this gap that needed to be filled…in supporting our youth. Primarily we stand up for people so that they are living as their authentic selves, and when that happens some radical sh*t can happen. I want to make sure no one falls through the cracks,”MacKinnon said.
When she was high school student herself, MacKinnon had friends struggling with eating disorders, anxiety and depression along with then-new social media platform, Facebook. She herself began looking for answers and support so that she could be a better friend to those who were struggling.
“In high school I was seeing so many people moving through (life) and not knowing about their issues (and how to deal with them),” MacKinnon said.
Now she is shifting her focus to include parents in the conversation and give them the tools to properly support and speak to their kids that may be experiencing mental differences and hosted an event last week for parents.
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”Parents don’t know the right questions to ask sometimes, we are there as an ally on the front lines with them to help determine the next step. It will be rad getting resources to them and they will walk away with some of our tools that will allow them to start those conversations (with their kids),” MacKinnon said.
MacKinnon’s favourite age group to work with are students in Grade 8, she says she learns the most from them and enjoys the uncensored conversations she can have with them.
“Everyone says they are the most difficult to work with, but I think they are just genius. They are just learning how to advocate for themselves. But we as a society (historically) decided that opinions need to come off pretty and they are only just learning how to be filtered. I teach them that they need to learn how to be kind and good and what it means to be creating spaces so that they can do it for themselves in the future,” she said.
One in four people experience mental differences; MacKinnon’s preferred term in lieu of mental illness, she says it is a more inclusive term and less limiting.
“It means we aren’t putting people in boxes and determining what is normal.”
For more information about Nine Rising visit their website