SHARON BLADY

Sharon is a comic book geek and academic who also spent some time as Manitoba's Minister of Health. She is now a mental health advocate empowering others to Embrace their Superpowers.

 

Sharon is passionate about using her lived experience of mood disorders as part of a vision for growing peer support for increased mental health and well-being. Having had a variety of experiences in her life that range from being a single mom on social assistance, to being responsible for a $6 billion health department budget, and from domestic violence, cancer, and suicide survivor to published author, entrepreneur, and public speaker, Sharon has seen the world, and her mental health diagnoses, from a number of perspectives. She believes the best way to support others is to meet them where they are in their journey.

 

Sharon's has always seen her overarching job description as "How can I be useful?" whether she was providing a social justice perspective in university classrooms in B.C., Manitoba, or Ontario, to her students in Indigenous Studies, Social Work, Nursing, Anthropology, or Women's Studies programs, or when she was representing her childhood neighbour in the Manitoba Legislature. Now Sharon takes her experience as an advocate to volunteer and board positions for a variety of non-profit organizations, and to teams where she can continue to work for improved mental health supports, increasing access to recovery-based models, and harm-reduction programming.

 

She is combination of Wonder Woman, Wolverine, Buffy, and Holtzmann - a thought that will either leave you smiling, or rather confused...