Life Unscripted ca

12/08/2026

For many teens and young adults thoughts Are Not Facts. Getting out of bed can be the hardest part of the day, and for a lot of teens, that struggle stays hidden behind jokes, grades, or silence.

Youth mental health speaker, Lawrence C. Harris, helps teens and young adults believe in themselves, think differently about their future, and make better choices rooted in self-respect.

Listen to Lawrence's interview on https://lifeunscripted.ca or your favourite podcast app.

Lawrence shares his lived experience with severe bullying, being kicked out the house at 13, childhood abuse, and the kind of loneliness that makes even saying Hi to someone feel like you are a burden.

Learn more about Lawrence at: https://www.lawrencecharris.com

07/02/2024

Find Possibilities And Hope From Personal Stories About Mental Health

Tara Mckendrick, Executive Director of Canadian Mental Health Association, Niagara is on Life Unscripted to about CMHA crisis services and to help to define what is a crisis. Like most communities Niagara has a homeless and addiction crisis but Tara says we can’t just look at solving the problem, we have to find out the story of how a person got to where they are. It will help people think about possibilities and maybe find hope.

A New Canada-Wide Su***de Help Line. 9-8-8 (988.ca) is a new 3-digit su***de crisis help line is being rolled out across Canada. The line will connect people who are experiencing thoughts of su***de to their to their local su***de prevention lines and make it easier for areas that don’t currently ...

13/01/2024

No one likes to have cold feet and most of us take for granted that we can buy warm socks and be comfortable during the winter.
The Socks For Change charity donates thousands of warm wool socks to people who are homeless or struggling financially and aren’t able to buy basic necessities like socks. Founder Sam Baio talks about Socks on Life Unscripted and how people can help give the gift of warm feet by going to the socksforchange.ca and buying a pair of wool socks for themselves and two pairs will be donated.

Life Unscripted host Janice Arnoldi interviews Sam Sunday at noon on 610CKTB or you can listen anytime at lifeunscripted.ca or on your favourite podcast app.

13/12/2023

Feed Ontario has released it’s annual Hunger Report which measures food bank use Five million people visited foods banks across the province between April 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023. One in 6 identified as having a job.

Sadly, food bank visits have increased at the same time people’s ability to give has declined.

Food bank use remains at an all-time high with this year marking the seventh consecutive year of food bank use increases. These numbers translate to local food banks.

On the show today are Carolyn Stewart CEO of Feed Ontario and Christine Clark-Lafleur CEO of Port Cares PortColborne and a member of Feed Niagara.

20/11/2023

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health - CAMH - is focusing its no one left behind fundraising campaign on substance use and addiction. Opioid use and deaths are still the biggest crisis with more 7,300 in Canada in 2022. But use of stimulants like m**h amphetamine, also known as crystal m**h, is also increasing.

Dr. Leslie Buckley is Chief of Addiction Services at CAMH and she says mixed drug toxicity, for example m**h and an opioid is a major contributor to overdoses and deaths.

Opioids are still the major crisis in Canada with 7300 deaths in 2022. But stimulants like m**hamphetamine also contribute to overdoses. Dr. Leslie Buckley is Chief of Addiction Services at the Centre for Mental Health and Addiction.

09/10/2023

When does gambling for fun become an addiction? Gambling flies a bit under the radar and is a hidden addiction, according to Marnie Prokator from Community and Addiction Services of Niagara – or CASON. She says you may be surprised to hear what can be considered compulsive gambling. Listen to the full interview on Life Unscripted - Stories of Mental Health and Addiction.

More provinces are taking away the right for children to use their preferred name and pronoun. Quest Community Health Centre in Niagara provides counselling to all of 2SLGBTQ+ community, including counselling for children, through it’s Rainbow Niagara program. Quest also offers health care service...

07/09/2023

Every time I watch the news or read it online I think about how happy I am that I’m older. But I worry about my 15 year old nephew and my nieces and nephews who are now having children of their own. Wildfires are raging at the same time and buring their way through communities and many people had to leave their homes.
Smoke from Quebec covering southern Ontario. Politics in the U.S. is a mess again and the federal government has now put out a travel advisory about 18 states where 2sLGBTQ+ people could experience discrimination.

All this after 3 years of a pandemic.

I’m talking to Erin Clayton from Pathstone Mental Health about how parents can talk to their kids about what’s happening in the world and importantly, how can they recognize when their child is experiencing more persistent mental health problems.

With forest fires raging across western Canada our kids are again facing a situation they may not understand and that can be scary. Parents need to talk to their children and Erin Clayton from Pathstone Mental Health says they can use the skills that helped their kids through COVID.

17/07/2023

I had the honour to meet some of the artists at Willow Arts Community in Niagara and learn how deeply it has impacted their lives and ability to live with mental illness and substance use disorder.
This is my interview with founder and executive director Shauna McLeod.

The Willow Arts Community is an arts + peer support organization for adults living with mental illness/substance use disorder.

25/05/2023

Birchway Niagara (formerly Women's Place) has amalgamated its shelters into one to provide more and better services in South Niagara for women and childeren experiencing domestic abuse.

Executive Director Jennifer Gauthier talks to Life Unscripted ca Unscripted host Janice Arnoldi about the need for a more shelter services as gender violence continues to increase.

https://lifeunscripted.ca/birchway-niagara-a-safe-haven-from-domestic-abuse/

31/03/2023

Today, March 31st marks International Transgender Day of Visibility🏳️‍⚧️.

The day is dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of transgender and gender nonconforming people while raising awareness of the work that still needs to be done to achieve trans justice.

Janice interviewed, Ally Phillips, who talked about his decision to transition, what its means to his mental health and to the disovery of his faith.

Ally shared this at the end of the interview:

"We can always all do our best to reach for compassion. I might not understand you but I'm in your corner.....don't worry about the right or the wrong, worry about how you are treating people."

Treating each other with compassion is som**hing we can ALL do.

For the full interview visit: https://lifeunscripted.ca/international-transgender-day-of-visilibily/


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