Who are we ?
Our association is unique in the province of Quebec, as it is composed exclusively of people who are living or have lived with a mental health issue, uniting to promote recovery and the interests of their peers.
That's what makes it so strong and rich!
Vox, in Latin, means voice. The symbol of our association is VQ, representing the initials of Vox Québec and referring to the lived experience of people living with or who have lived with a mental health issue. The lived experience of these individuals is transformed into experiential knowledge, which is one of their tools. Experiential knowledge consists of living an experience, analyzing it, and emerging with strategies and wisdom that can then be shared. (Godrie, 2016)
Our mission
To bring together in a national association people who are experiencing or have experienced a mental health issue,
consult them and represent them in order to promote and defend their interests.
Our story
Born from cooking gatherings, the Vox Québec Association, formerly known as Les Porte-Voix du Rétablissement (The Voices of Recovery), was incorporated on January 24, 2007. Our association is composed exclusively of people who are living with or have lived with a mental health issue. This is what makes it so rich and strong!
Three mental health service users and activists are the founding members: Luc Vigneault, Nathalie Lagueux, and Véronique Bizier. All three have also worked at various levels within the Association of Mental Health Service Users of the Quebec City Region (APUR). We would also like to warmly thank APUR, which supported this project, generously funded the charter application, and provided the premises. By creating the Vox Québec Association, the founding members wanted to come together so that we could unite our voices and make our collective message heard by decision-makers and various stakeholders in the mental health network.
An American slogan perfectly represents our vision: "Nothing about us without us".
Our founding assembly took place on October 8, 2008, during the 14th Symposium of the Quebec Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation (AQRP). This association lent us a room, where we gathered several activists from different regions of Quebec. At the same symposium, a roundtable discussion was held with other service users from around the world. Themed "A Stopover in the Land of Service Users," the presentations focused on the involvement of service users in the mental health system. A co-founder, who was a speaker at this event, took the opportunity to present the Vox Québec Association and its board members. The president at the time proudly announced that we had received funding from the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS) to launch our association. In front of 1,000 attendees, our launch was warmly and enthusiastically received by those in recovery, their families and friends, service providers, and managers. It was a historic moment!
Financial assistance from the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS) was received in February 2009. Determined, the administrators began reflecting on the Association's future. Several ideas, needs, and elements of a vision emerged from these foundational meetings. We had long awaited the opportunity to come together to build an organization that would represent the interests of people living with or who have lived with mental health challenges. A dream was coming true. Since then, the dream has been a reality, and the collective voice of our peers is being heard throughout the province!