Denise McCuaig is an accomplished Métis woman with an excellent knowledge and background in Aboriginal health and mental health and addictions. Denise has accomplished many things while living with Bi Polar, diagnosed in her early twenties.

Denise has been an Indigenous Advisor on Aboriginal mental health and addictions through a number of boards and committees, including but not limited to,  advisory to the Canadian Mental Health Strategy led by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, San’yas Indigenous Cultural Safety Training program designed and hosted by BC Provincial Health Service Authority Indigenous Health and was the lead on Aboriginal health planning and implementation for the Interior Health Authority.

Denise has also worked as a Director, Mental Health and Addictions for Interior Health Authority where her responsibilities included overseeing tertiary services, outpatient programming and community care contracts throughout the Thompson Cariboo Region of BC.

Denise has been a sought after speaker on topics of Cultural Safety, healing through cultural renewal, suicide prevention and living with mental illness. Denise speaks from lived experience in a manner that many audiences have been able to relate too.

In 2006, The Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health (CAMIMH) awarded Denise with a Champion Mental Health Award recognizing her hard work and contributions. In 2003, closer to home in Kamloops, BC, the YMCA, awarded Denise with a Woman of Distinction Award.

Denise’s greatest accomplishment and honour has always been her family. She is proud of her husband, their combined family of four children and their 6 grandchildren. And the closeness she experiences with members of her extended family and Metis and First Nations community.