Who We Are
The Empowerment Council (EC) is a patient-advocacy organization working to empower the collective voice of service users of the mental health and addiction systems. The EC is a leader in enacting systemic change for mental health and addiction survivors and clients primarily in the GTA. We are a service user organization that is funded by CAMH but takes its direction entirely from service users. The EC has two types of members: service users who are voting members and allies who are non-voting members.
The EC has represented clients on multiple CAMH Committees, organized numerous consultations and focus groups, reviewed CAMH policies and provided client perspectives. We’ve worked with community and academic partners and sought justice through inquests and addressing legislative and senate committees.
You can view our Terms of Reference here.
You can help support our efforts by becoming a member.
Accountability
The EC reports to its membership through the Board (elected by members) through consultations, newsletters and at the Annual General Meeting.
Funding
The EC receives core funding from CAMH, who chose to continue to support an independent voice for its service users. This partnership model is considered the most empowering model of engagement in Canada to date. The EC has also received project funding from various grants.
“We advocate for conditions in which a person can thrive because there is nothing good about being well adjusted to a sick society. We offer our appreciation to CAMH for the integrity they show in supporting an independent client voice, and in doing so, creating a model for client-hospital relations.”
– Jennifer Chambers, Empowerment Council Executive Director
Right: The Empowerment Council 10th Anniversary celebration
Our History
The EC was founded in 2002. For a decade before the EC, the Queen Street Patients Council was an independent advocacy voice for people at CAMH’s Queen Street site (formerly Queen Street Mental Health Centre). The EC expanded this voice to include everyone on the receiving end of CAMH services. At one point, every psychiatric hospital in Ontario had an independent patient council. The EC has been advancing engagement, advocacy and education for 28 years. Our organisation continues to collaborate and build from a network of local and international organisations.
Learn more about our advocacy.
Acknowledging the First Nations land we stand on
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is situated on lands that have been occupied by First Nations people for millennia. Toronto and its surrounding areas are the traditional territories of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians, the Huron-Wendat Nation and the Seneca of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. The site of CAMH appears in colonial records as the council grounds of the Mississaugas of the New Credit.
As an organization within CAMH, the Empowerment Council supports the ongoing importance of recognizing, respecting and acknowledging the First Peoples land, on whose traditional territory we work–both with our client membership and in our work with Board members and staff. The Empowerment Council is also committed to working in solidarity towards reconciliation in partnership with First Nations, Inuit and the Métis.