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Speechbobble Socializes Summit for Children and Youth Mental Health


WEBWIRE

TORONTO, Ontario - May 30, 2011 – Mental illness costs the Canadian economy a staggering $51 billion a year, and each day 500,000 people will miss work due to mental health problems. For more than 70% of adults with mental health problems, the onset of difficulties occurred before the age of 18. And currently up to 80% of children and youth will not receive treatment for mental health difficulties.

Creating a strong voice for change and for equitable access to mental health services will require a collaborative effort from a broad spectrum of organizations and groups including the corporate sector. For this reason, Speechbobble™, one of Canada’s fastest growing enterprise social networking companies, is pleased to announce that its social engagement platform has been selected by the Coalition for Children and Youth Mental Health for their inaugural Summit for Children and Youth Mental Health. The Summit will be held on June 2, 2011 at the Sheraton Centre Hotel in Toronto.

Speechbobble will be used as an invitation-only private social networking tool that will increase Summit attendee communication, networking and sharing of evidence-based practices among the many different organizations that support children and youth. The Coalition represents 26 inaugural organizations from the health, children’s services and education sectors who are focused to radically improve life chances of children and youth who suffer from mental health issues.

The Summit will feature radio and TV journalist Valerie Pringle; the Honourable Michael J. L. Kirby, chair of the Mental Health Commission of Canada; Dr. Ian Manion, Executive Director for the Provincial (Ontario) Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health at CHEO; and Dr. Bruce Ferguson, Director of the Community Health Services Resource Group at The Hospital for Sick Children, as keynote speakers.

“Investing in the mental health and well-being of children and youth is an investment in Ontario’s civic and economic future. Dollars invested now will save lives and be returned with interest in the years ahead,” said Catherine Fife, chair of the Coalition for Children and Youth Mental Health and President of the Ontario Public School Boards Association. “We all have a stake in bringing this pervasive health issue out of the shadows and with Speechbobble we can socialize the issues, share best practices, and continue this important conversation with youth and practitioners long after the Summit is concluded.”

Speechbobble is very pleased that it can support this important cause and the Coalition with its innovative social networking solution. Since the platform can support virtually any type of communication and sharing, whether it be micro-blogging, email or mobile text it encourages participants of all ages to get onboard using their communication medium of choice. “Social networking holds the potential to sustain a broad social movement with respect to children and youth mental health,” explained Josef Zankowicz, CEO of Speechbobble.

Some features and functionalities of Speechbobble include:

•Cloud-based community collaboration and conversation platform, meant for collective idea sharing and trend spotting;
•Community applications can be launched as private intranets or open extranets to connect with employees, customers, and key stakeholders;
•Timely feedback on issues using real-time polling, a resource repository with search, and an RSS daily feed; and
•Platform analytics help organizations understand dynamics of internal communications to extract value and guide decision-making.

About Speechbobble

Based in Toronto, Speechbobble provides a private cloud social networking platform to enhance collaboration, affect change, guide management decisions, improve performance and reduce costs. The platform captures the collective intelligence of an organization by integrating with existing enterprise tools and the external social web. Specifically, the platform enables efficient idea sharing and planning across geographies, while allowing management to identify key influencers and trends within the organization and to manage rising organizational issues. These capabilities are enhanced with extensive analytics and enterprise grade security in one integrated dashboard. For more information please visit speechbobble.com.

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© 2011 Speechbobble Inc.

For media contact:

Taras Koulik, AVP Business Development, Speechbobble
taras@speechbobble.com
647-347-0057 ext. 523



WebWireID138403




 
 Mental Health Summit
 Children and Youth
 Social Networking
 Valerie Pringle
 Michael J. L. Kirby


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