The Public Health Agency of Canada’s MHP-IF seeks to learn about promising approaches for advancing mental health promotion among young Canadians, with an emphasis on increasing health equity. The MHP-IF is a 10-year investment that started in 2019. The first phase focused on the design, development, delivery and initial testing of project interventions, partnership development, and creating conditions for long-term success, such as broader implementation and scale up, as appropriate. The second phase supports full implementation, adaptation, assessment, scaling and evaluation of the interventions across multiple populations, communities and settings, including the development of vested partnerships and networks.
Twenty projects were funded in Phase 1, with fifteen continuing to Phase 2. These projects are diverse. They:
happen in over 120 sites across 12 provinces and territories
engage Indigenous, newcomer, refugee, immigrant, transgender and other groups
span infants, early years, school-aged children and youth, and youth in transition years
work with and for parents, other caregivers, families, service providers, children and youth, educators
address many determinants of mental health, including social support networks and environments, cultural identity, healthy child development, gender identities, social-emotional learning, healthy relationships, coping skills, pro-social behaviours
use different approaches, such as trauma-informed, strengths-based, arts-based, land-based, culturally safe, participatory, Indigenous perspectives
are led by a mix of universities, community organizations and national organizations and networks
The Strongest Families Institute is expanding the delivery of three programs designed to equip parents and caregivers of children and youth ages 3-17 with the skills to manage and prevent anxiety and depression as well as common behavioural issues.
The HORS-PISTE program aims to enable students to better deal with developmental challenges in order to prevent the appearance of symptoms related to anxiety disorders and to other adjustment disorders.
STRONG is a small group intervention developed to promote resilience and reduce psychological distress among newcomer students, aiming to promote individual strengths, build skills to make positive choices, and provide a sense of self and belonging.
This is a youth-focused, youth-led community initiative in the Pas, Manitoba. Youth engage in pro-social activities, provide positive mentorship, develop healthy attachments to their communities, and learn to establish and make progress toward self-identified and personal goals.
This youth engagement and capacity building intervention is comprised of a series of Collaborative Policymaking Workshops and emerging activities designed to promote skills-building and collective action for youth mental health.
The project addresses multiple factors that influence the overall mental health of newcomer children, youth and families including risk and protective factors and the social determinants of health for Syrian newcomer children and youth (aged 6-21) in Winnipeg.
This project is a youth-oriented brokering intervention that targets cultural minority youth (aged 13-19) in Eritrean/Ethiopian, Oromo, Syrian, and Somali communities in Edmonton, Alberta.
The Inuusirvik Community Wellness Hub is a family-centered, community-led, social enterprise model to provide evidence-based wellness programming and services for Inuit children, youth, and families in Nunavut.
This project provides training to community-based practitioners to deliver a trauma informed and attachment focused group-based intervention to foster and kinship parents in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.
This project examines the effect of promising strategies and joint effort between early years professionals, community stakeholders, and the parents of children aged 2 to 12, that aims to promote the healthy development of children through free and adventurous play.
This project is designed to improve the mental health of transgender, non-binary and gender questioning (trans) youth (aged 13-24), by strengthening relationships with their caregivers/parents.
This intervention uses the arts to focus on cultural identity and developing coping skills, social and emotional skills, and prosocial behaviours, while processing trauma for Northern youth aged 13-17.
The Mind Your Food project is co-developing, implementing, testing, and evaluating a community-based program that builds protective factors for mental health in youth (aged 13-19) experiencing food insecurity—including Indigenous, newcomer, and low-income communities.
This youth-led initiative aims to facilitate youth aged 14-28 to inspire, guide and support their communities to build a culture where young people with experience of marginalization are seen, heard, included, and celebrated.
Nurturing the Seed is a strength-based health intervention model designed for Indigenous children (birth to six) that focuses on the promotion of infant and early mental health (IEMH).
