Background

My name is Keith Mahar and I am the coordinator for this community development project. The concept of the channel has evolved from the positive benefit that peer support played in my own recovery from bipolar disorder, combined with my present roles both as a mental health advocate and social worker in Australia, and my former corporate broadcasting career in Canada.

As addressed in my personal story, symptoms of bipolar disorder ended my corporate broadcasting career in Toronto during 1994.  I immigrated to Australia in 2001 and soon became involved in Canberra's mental health community.  The decision to become active in the community fundamentally changed my life and my mental health significantly improved in the process.  I made a presentation on my personal recovery at the World Psychiatric Association International Congress in 2007. 

An integral part of my recovery was becoming involved with my peers in the mental health community, originally as a volunteer educator with Mental Illness Education ACT (MIEACT). Experience there helped to restore my confidence, reduce my self-stigma and recover my sense of identity. In 2005, after three years at MIEACT, and one year working part-time at the Mental Health Council of Australia, I started a social work degree at ACU in Canberra.

It was while studying social work that I read Professor Albert Bandura's work on the importance of a strong sense of self-efficacy in enhancing human accomplishment through difficult tasks, including the strengthening of a person's belief in their own abilities by providing them with the opportunity to view others similar to themselves accomplishing comparable activities.

Bandura's work inspired me to consider devising new methods to effectively use social models to help individuals with mental health problems. It soon became apparent to me that an online community channel might be extremely useful in this regard.

In 2007, ACU's School of Social Work granted me permission to conduct further research on this community development concept for my final student placement for my degree. Dr Leanne Craze agreed to be my field educator for this placement, which was conducted through the Mental Health Community Coalition ACT, the peak body representing the not-for-profit community mental health sector in the Australian Capital Territory. My research confirmed to me that an online community channel produced and operated by people with lived experience of mental health problems would indeed hold significant promise from several individual, community and societal perspectives.

On 5 March 2009, this initiative was launched at the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership by my colleague Chris Canham and myself.  On the same day, the Mental Health Council of Australia issued a press release which welcomed Mentalympians as "a world first website which is all about mental health recovery and resilience." 

I subsequently left my position as a case manager at Communty Youth Justice in Canberra to accept a job as a peer support worker at Woden Community Service for the Personal Helpers and Mentors Program, a key Australian Government initiative included in the National Action Plan on Mental Health 2006-2011.

On World Mental Health Day 2009, the inaugural advisory group for Mentalympians was announced, consisting of 12 individuals from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Scotland and the USA, possessing a significant and diverse knowledge base.  The related press release was covered by a number of online news sources, including AOL, CNBC, Reuters and USA Today.

Given my work commitments, it is not possible for me to devote all my time to developing Mentalympians, although I will indefinitely continue to try to progress its completition because of its social importance and need.  Furthermore, even if I spent every moment working on this initiative, it is simply not the type of project which can succeed without the participation and support of a significant number of people like yourself. Consequently, I am asking for your help. Please become an online volunteer today.