Mental Illness Awareness Week (MIAW) carries on where Mental Health Week leaves off by focusing attention on mental disorders: signs and symptoms, how to get help, stigma, hope and recovery, and the impact of mental illness on lives, families, workplaces and society. MIAW was initially spearheaded by the Canadian Psychiatric Association and is now an education project of the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health, a national fifteen-member alliance of organizations representing the entire mental health-illness continuum. Mental Illness Awareness Week is always the first full week of October. Depression Anxiety Screening and Education Day across BC is always held on the Thursday of Mental Illness Awareness Week.