About Sandi

I’ve been a director on the board of the CAMH Foundation since 2014 and am proud to be a founding member, along with my family (including husband Jim Treliving, owner of Boston Pizza International and known to many as the longest-serving “dragon” on CBC’s Dragon’s Den), of womenmind. This community is committed to increasing awareness about girls’ and women’s mental health, reducing the gender gap in mental health, recruiting and advancing female scientists, and supporting ground-breaking discoveries in the field of mental health.

The more we talk about mental health, the better we will be able to support people and families living with mental illness.

The mental health challenges facing women are significant and pressing: women experience depression, anxiety, and trauma to a greater extent than men. Many treatments used today have been disproportionately tested on men and not equitably studied on women. And women in science face biases as they work to advance their careers. womenmind exists to close existing gaps in care, and achieve better mental health care and outcomes that will have a positive impact on women’s health and advancement in North America and beyond.

Learn more about how you can get involved.

Why mental health?

My personal connection to mental health goes back to my early family life. I was seven years old when my teenager brother, David, began exhibiting the symptoms of what would later be diagnosed as schizophrenia. It’s a disease that can cause delusions, hallucinations and disorganized thinking. When in the grip of psychosis, David would have violent outbursts and it wasn’t until later in life that he was able to get the treatment and medication he needed.

Being exposed to mental health challenges at a very young age with my brother’s illness, I always knew that I was going to do something in the mental health world.

I didn’t realize the impact of my brother’s illness on me. I always looked at my father and mother and how challenging it’s been for them, but David’s illness has impacted me tremendously as well. Because my brother is ten years older than me, I didn’t really get to know him ever. And I’m sad about that. I know he was a great brother to my sisters, but I never really experienced that relationship with him because I was so young. So being able to do the work I am doing now in the mental health field is both rewarding and healing.

I’ve come to believe that the more we talk about mental health, the better we will be able to support p\eople and families living with mental illness.

Humanity is experiencing a mental health crisis and the numbers are staggering — almost half a billion people globally struggle with mental illness, and fewer than half of those affected have access to adequate care despite known effective treatments.

When it comes to our focus on the mental wellbeing of women, it really hits home. Between Jim, and I, we have two daughters, two daughters-in-law, six granddaughters, and two great-granddaughters. Women’s health research is underfunded, underrepresented, and is overall lagging within the field of mental health.

I hope you’ll consider joining me and my family on our mission to help grow the womenmind community so that together we can be champions of women’s mental health.