Mental health is health. For everyone. Forever.

Here are the 3 most common gifts in wills:

1. You can leave a specific dollar amount.

2. You can leave a residual bequest where you can donate a percentage or the remainder of your estate after other needs have been fulfilled.

3. You can leave a contingent bequest made on the condition of a certain event.

Your advisor will be able to provide final text, but this is a good place to start.

"I give the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Foundation [the sum of $_________] or [___% of the residue of my estate.]"

You'll also need our address and our charitable registration number to properly update your will:

CAMH Foundation
100 Stokes Street, 5th Floor
Bell Gateway Building
Toronto, ON M6J 1H4

Charitable registration number: 106932320RR0001

This was very familiar to me: my mum had a significant mental illness for most of her life and this was presenting the same way. I felt I was seeing through time. I promised myself that I would not let him become a shell of a person like my mother. I was not going to let him deal with blaming and shaming, which was very pronounced at that time in the South Asian community. He became more and more agitated, and I knew we had to go to the local hospital. My heart was breaking. I was so sad. But my sadness became frustration and anger at how he was treated in the emergency room. Like he was a number. They gave him different kinds of medication and a bunch of doctors talked to him and disagreed about his diagnosis. I just sat with him. I held his hand. 

He was back at the hospital a couple more times and it was the same frustration and trial and error. I knew he needed to go to CAMH. He agreed. Our experience from the very first moment was different. It was a welcoming, comfortable space. The doctors were caring and thorough. And my son was an ideal candidate for a pilot project in personalized medicine through DNA testing. I was overwhelmed with relief. Everything I felt about CAMH was validated when he got a proper diagnosis and got treatment that helped immediately and still helps to this day. When I made the decision to remember CAMH in my will, I talked to my son. He shares my deep gratitude for CAMH. He knows that CAMH will be there for him, even after I am gone. And he came with me to draw up my will. He wanted to be with me. He just sat with me. He held my hand.

While expanding emergency care and broadening the availability of treatment is absolutely crucial, I believe we also need to push hard on developing targeted solutions that are fine-tuned for the different ways individuals can suffer. We urgently need to make progress on deepening our understanding of the brain and sustain this effort into the future.

CAMH is responding today while investigating the future of mental illness treatment. I have tremendous confidence in CAMH: many of the research discoveries that have already been established as treatments were only notions when I first engaged with the hospital 20 years ago. And I know that 20 years from now, we will have made more astounding progress. Given the complexity of the human brain, there are more discoveries to make and more innovations to develop. That’s why CAMH is a beneficiary in my will - so I can continue to support this cause for a long time to come. My teenage daughters and I have open and honest conversations about my will and my legacy. They are reassured that they are part of my legacy, but also very proud that supporting CAMH is part of our family plan.