Bell Canada has given Queen’s $1 million for mental health research, establishing the first-ever mental health and anti-stigma research chair.

The new initiative on mental health comes after seven students died at Queen’s last year, which Principal Daniel Woolf said is “partly coincidence.”

“We were already doing stuff in this area well before last year’s tragic events,” he said. “We’ve had the Mental Health Working Group since 2007.

The funding was announced at a ceremony on Tuesday at the new medical school building.

The chair position will be going to Heather Stuart, a professor of community health and epidemiology at Queen’s. It will exist for the next five years at which time Bell’s funding expires.

“Stigma was one area that is, I think, pretty unique and is a major part of the problem that wasn’t being addressed and we happen to have one of the world’s experts on it right here,” Woolf said.

Woolf said the University will provide Bell with a report to detail how the funding is spent.

“At the end of the year, we provide a stewardship report to the donor,” he said.

The donation to Queen’s is part of the company’s Let’s Talk Campaign, an initiative started in 2010 when Bell announced it would give $50 million to mental health-related programs over five years.

Bell has already donated money to organizations like the Boys and Girls Club of York Region, the Psychology Foundation of Canada and post-secondary institutions like Lakehead University.

The $1 million will be used to fund research that Stuart has already started — she’s one of two people in Canada to focus research on the stigma surrounding mental health.

“I’m an epidemiologist and I focus on psychiatric epidemiology and mental health services evaluation,” she said. “My substantive area has been in stigma and discrimination.”

Epidemiology focuses on the study and treatment of epidemics.

Stuart added that Bell approached her a year ago to discuss the first anti-stigma research chair.

She also said because she’s the chair of the new initiative, she has discretion over where the $1 million will go.

Stuart said some of the money will be used for salary funding but also to disseminate

information faster.

“There will probably be some funding available for presenting results at conferences, that would be helpful,” she said.

The researchers are working with high schools in order improve mental health programs, Stuart said.

“They’re going to use the information right away to make their programs better,” she said. “We’re going to use that information to educate funders and decision-makers that we do have effective interventions available.”

Stuart said her research will be used for academic purposes as well.

“We have an obligation to publish because we’re scientists, but a lot of the information will be up on webpages like the Mental Health Commission webpage,” she said.

Stuart said one tangible initiative to increase awareness about the stigma surrounding mental illness is mental health first aid training. Currently Health, Counselling and Disability Services offers this training twice a year through Student Affairs. “That’s training front line people who work with students on how to recognize signs of mental illness and how to get people help,” she said.

Bell’s Chair of the Board Thomas O’Neill said he was happy to partner with Queen’s on this initiative.

“Professor Stuart has a world class reputation which made the decision easy and coming from Queen’s, I had no objection whatsoever,” O’Neill, Comm ’67, said.

O’Neill said Bell has always been a charitable organization, but was looking to donate to a specific cause.

“If you look at CIBC, Run for the Cure immediately comes to mind to the public,” he said. “They’ve branded it that way so we were thinking where we could focus.”

O’Neill added that other companies haven’t explored mental health initiatives, which is why Bell chose it as a focus.