The Mindset Awards

The Mindset Awards for 2025 have expanded into three categories, adding an award for reporting on addictions (of all kinds) to the well-established ones for reporting on workplace mental health and the mental health of young people.

Addictions
Workplace
Young People

The Mindset Awards are sponsored by the Canadian Mental Health Association, B.C. Division. They are administered by the Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma, and adjudicated by independent juries.

Six winners received 2024 Mindset Awards for mental health reporting at CAJ’s National Conference in Calgary on May 30, 2025.

The awards were presented by freelance journalist and journalism educator Christina Frangou

2024 Winners

Left to Right: Luke Galati, CBC; Robert Cribb, IJB; Mark McKinnon, Globe & Mail; Jonny Morris, CEO, CMHA BC

Photos: Laureat Nkinzo

The Mindset Award for Reporting on the Mental Health of Young People

First prize for reporting on the mental health of young people was awarded to Luke Galati, with Ashishvangh Contractor, for Dreaming of Better, broadcast by CBC Radio on December 27, 2024.

Luke shared his deeply personal story of spending three months in a psychiatric hospital following a bipolar episode. This one-hour special took listeners on an intimate journey into the realities of living with bipolar disorder. They heard how it's diagnosed, found out what it's like to live with, and learned how people cope through the complexities of regaining stability and finding a path to wellness.

An Honourable Mention in this category went to Dr. Brian Goldman with Jennifer Warren, Jonathan Ore, and Colleen Ross, for The toll of cannabis-induced psychosis, broadcast by CBC Radio on February 10, 2024. Around one in five young people in Canada (some as young as 16) use cannabis every day. THC is the key psychoactive ingredient in cannabis – and today’s high-THC marijuana, available legally in Canada, brings with it very serious mental health risks, especially for young men.

Another Honourable Mention went to Rachel Browne with Harley Rustad, Mihika Agarwal, Annissa Malthaner, Allison Baker and Carmine Starnino for A Military-Style School for Troubled Teens Became a “Living Nightmare” in The Walrus on August 20, 2024.  It revealed that dozens of students aged 12 to 18 had experienced physical, sexual and psychological abuse at the school, which later announced it is closing due to falling enrolment.

The Mindset Award for Reporting on Workplace Mental Health

First prize in the workplace category went to Robert Cribb, with Wendy-Ann Clarke, Declan Keogh and Owen Thompson, for Mind Games – Healing or Harming Generational Wounds, published co-operatively by Investigative Journalism Bureau, TVO, and The Toronto Star on November 1, 2024. The work revealed a discriminatory federal program that has subjected some of Canada's most vulnerable Indigenous people to harm and exploitation.

Honourable Mentions were awarded to reporter Pippa Norman and photographer Kari Medig for Thousands of kilometres from the battlefield, these Ukrainian veterans are finding solace in the Canadian woods, published by The Globe and Mail on July 12, 2024. While war continues to cast a shadow over the lives of Ukrainians, this is the story of one Canadian doing what he can to help relieve soldiers' mental trauma from afar. The awards were accepted on their behalf by the Globe’s senior international correspondent, Mark McKinnon.

The Mindset Awards and their French counterparts are sponsored by the B.C. Division of the Canadian Mental Health Association.

Sponsors are not involved in the selection of finalists or the choice of winners.

Winners of the 2023 Mindset Awards for mental health reporting received their awards from retired reporter and network anchor Kevin Newman at a Forum lunch and discussion during the CAJ National Conference in Toronto on May 31, 2024.

2023 Winners

Listen to a podcast of the event including discussion of the winning work led by Kevin Newman

  • Laura Lynch, with Rachel Sanders and Catherine Rolfsen, won first prize for reporting on the mental health of young people, for "Emily's story: one activist's journey through climate anxiety" broadcast on CBC Radio's What on Earth on June 25.

    Jeremy Hainsworth won first prize for reporting on mental health in the workplace, for his five-part series "Existential crisis: There's a mental health problem in B.C.'s courts" published by Vancouver Is Awesome from October 29 to November 2.

  • Jana Pruden with Kasia Mychajlowycz won an Honourable Mention in the workplace category, for “Helen in Hell”, episode 2 of a Globe & Mail podcast series In Her Defence, released October 10.

    Kenyon Wallace won an Honourable Mention for reporting on the mental health of young people, for “Minds Lost in the Maze" in the Toronto Star on October 30, 2023.


Photos: Sophie Bouquillon

The Mindset and En-Tête Awards are now sponsored exclusively by the B.C. Division of the Canadian Mental Health Association. The Forum greatly appreciates its support. We welcome further appropriate sponsorship offers to help us expand the prize categories. The Mindset Awards are presented in partnership with CAJ at its national convention.

The Forum chooses finalists and appoints juries in each category and language, independent of the sponsors and the Forum, to determine the winners.

Mindset and En-Tête, currently in their third editions, are Canada’s only journalist-to-journalist guides to mental health reporting, written and published by the Forum with initial support from the Mental Health Commission of Canada and CBC News. The Forum has editorial control of the guides, which are currently made available in booklet form without charge to journalists, news organizations and journalism schools across Canada while stocks last. The guides can also be downloaded as PDFs from the Mindset and En-Tête websites.

Winners of the 2022 Mindset Awards for reporting on the mental health of young people and for workplace mental health reporting were celebrated at a Forum lunch at the CAJ National Conference in Vancouver on April 14, 2023.

2022 Winners

Listen to a podcast of the event including discussion of the winning work with host Kathryn Gretsinger

Photos: Michelle Meiklejohn