Twenty-two finalists have been chosen in six competitions comprising the Mindset and En-Tête awards for excellence in mental health reporting in 2025. Finalists were selected from a record number of applicants, working in English or French, boosted by adding a third awards category - Reporting on Addictions - to two well-established ones in each language.
Mindset Award for Reporting on Addictions
Karen Pauls with Joan Webber, CBC News: Ibogaine: The Last Trip?: This psychedelic could change the opioid crisis. But its health risks hinder testing. (March 27, 2025)
Dr. Brian Goldman with Jennifer Warren & Colleen Ross,CBC Radio- White Coat, Black Art, The Treatment Centre that Grief Built: Part 1(May 3, 2025)and Part 2 (May 10, 2025)
Lucas-Matthew Marsh, The Toronto Star: I used to self-medicate with alcohol. (July 11, 2025)
Steven D’Souza with Eva Uguen-Csenge, Shelley Ayres, Emmanuel Marchand & Allya Davidson, CBC the fifth estate:The Political War on Safe Drugs. Canada’s opioid crisis has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, costing the health and justice systems billions. (November 13, 2025)
Mindset Award for Reporting on Mental Health in the Workplace
Jana G. Pruden, The Globe and Mail: The Matriarchy with Muscles. Profiling Cree wrestler Sage Morin, looking at how her work as a professional wrestler has changed her life, helping her move past tragedy to help and inspire others. (February 1,2025)
Zosia Bielski, The Globe and Mail: Despite a burnout crisis, Canadians are reluctant to rest. A new movement wants us to hit pause.
Feature examining the deep cultural aversion toward rest in Canada, and how inability to take rest seriously corrodes our mental health and our work, intensifying burnout in employees. (February 14, 2025)
Wendy-Ann Clarke and Robert Cribb, Investigative Journalism Bureau / NationalPost:‘They make you doubt your sanity.’ Staff describe toxic workplace at top mental health hospital. (July 29, 2025)
Dr. Brian Goldman with Stephanie Dubois & ColleenRoss, CBC Radio - White Coat, Black Art:‘The air rescue team reinventing first responder support.’ Miles Randell, an advanced care paramedic, is trying to do something different for frontline health-care workers who need a supportive work environment. (November 28, 2025)
Mindset Award for Reporting on the Mental Health of Young People
Jadine Ngan and Tahmeed Shafiq, illustration by Justin Poulsen, The Walrus: What Happens after a Death on Campus.“Following a string of suicides, U of T abandoned its students. It should have protected them.” (March 4, 2025)
Ann Dempsey Raven and Megan OgilvieThe Toronto Star:Failing Jade.An anonymous tipster sent a note to the Star, saying a 15-year-old girl in the care of a children’s aid society had languished in a budget hotel and died waiting for mental health and addiction treatment. (June 1,2025)
Samuel Wat CBC North: After again declaring suicide a crisis in Nunavut, officials and advocates look for new solutions. “Victoria Madsen, Nunavut's assistant deputy minister of health, admits she was initially sceptical when she found out a few years ago about all the territorial funding allocated for some community initiatives. She questioned what music classes, sports or fishing derbies had to do with suicide prevention. However, she soon realized what those events can mean to people.” (August 7, 2025)
Erin Anderssen Happiness reporter, The Globe & Mail: Doom-polling. Canada has fallen far in the global rankings of happy nations. Young people, suspecting our vision of the good life is unattainable, are exploring other options. (October 5, 2025)
Le prix En-Tête pour le reportage aux dépendances
(The En-Tête Award for Addiction Reporting: All submissions are in French.)
Myriam Fimbry, Radio-Canada: In the hell of drugs on the North Shore. Drugs don't just wreak havoc in the city; they do in rural areas too. On Quebec's North Shore, traffickers are waging a turf war, sowing fear in peaceful neighbourhoods of Sept-Îles. A meeting with a cocaine-addicted worker alongside actor Mario Saint-Amand. (August 28, 2025)
Caroline Touzin, La Presse: Homeless Deaths: A Tragic Record in Quebec. They died in public spaces. In front of a store. On the subway. None of these tragedies made the headlines. (September 6, 2025)
Florence Morin-Martel, Le Devoir: Thinking Outside the Box to Combat Methamphetamine Addiction. A study is testing two additions to standard therapy: a financial incentive and medication, alone or in combination. (October 4, 2025)
Amilie Mouton, Radio-Canada: Leaving the North, getting lost in the South. In November 2021, a woman from Salluit, Nunavik, died on a construction site, at the foot of one of the luxury buildings that have sprung up near Cabot Square in Montreal. (November 13, 2025)
Le prix En-Tête pour reportage en santé mentale chez les jeunes
(The En-Tête Award for Reporting on the Mental Health of Young People. All submissions are in French.)
Denis Wong, Radio-Canada: “I was no longer human”: Men broken by sexual violence. One in ten men in Canada has been a victim of sexual assault during their childhood or adolescence. (January 27, 2025)
Philippe-Antoine Saulnier, Radio-Canada: Rediscovering the Joy of Living… in Pediatric Psychiatry. The reporter visited the pediatric psychiatry unit at Rivière-des-Prairies Hospital and met three teenagers who had been treated there. (April 2, 2025)
Marine Cornieu, Québec Science: My Therapist is an AI. More and more people are turning to chatbots or mobile apps to find comfort or get help with mental health. These tools, while appealing, are not without risk. (September 2025)
Florence Morin-Martel, Le Devoir: “Having a Good Life” After Psychosis. A study is testing two additions to standard therapy: a financial indicator and medication, alone or in combination. (September 6, 2025)
The En-Tête pour reportage en santê mentale au travail
(The En-Tête Award for Reporting on Mental Health in the workplace. All submissions are in French.)
Alexis Gacon, Radio-Canada:Biodality in the Workplace: The workplace is gradually learning to make room for people living with this disorder and to better understand them. (June 8, 2025)
Danny Lemieux, Radio-Canada: Following a Terrorist Attack: Resilience is a complex mechanism. A study conducted with survivors of the Paris attacks sheds light on this process, which goes far beyond simple willpower. A conversation with survivors of the Bataclan attack. (November 9, 2025)
Winners - chosen by six separate and independent juries - are expected to be announced around the end of April. Discussion of the winning entries along with presentation of certificates will take place in June in Montreal (En-Tête) and Ottawa (Mindset). The Mindset and En-Tête Awards are sponsored by the Canadian Mental Health Association, B.C. division.
Winners - chosen by six separate, independent juries - are expected to be announced around the end of April or beginning of May.
Discussion of the winning entries along with presentation of prize certificates will take place in June in Montreal (En-Tête) and Ottawa (Mindset).
The Mindset and En-Tête Awards are sponsored by the Canadian Mental Health Association, B.C. division.