2022

A Growth Phase for Mental Health Promotion in Canada: Helping it Flourish

Why a growth phase?

The COVID-19 pandemic reinforced and heightened the need for mental health promotion. Mental health is now part of everyday conversations in almost every household. People are hearing, thinking and talking about equity, including ways that identities, cultures, generations and places are systematically excluded, left behind or negatively impacted by our household, neighbourhood, organizational, community and societal norms and practices. Higher needs and greater awareness of them has led to more investment in mental health promotion, especially for those most impacted by the pandemic. Existing investments can also extend their impact, including the Mental Health Promotion Innovation Fund (MHP-IF) as it enters a second 4-year phase in 2022.

What does it mean to flourish?

To thrive. To grow and develop successfully. To play to strengths. To connect with like-minded people who have diverse experiences that can nourish your own. To learn with and from each other. To co-design how to spread mental health promotion benefits to all peoples and places in Canada, especially those most in need.

How can we help mental health promotion flourish?

Together – if your work is positioned as mental health promotion or influences determinants of mental health through food systems, community safety, homelessness, education, wellbeing or otherwise. Making the most of a growth phase for mental health promotion in Canada will take expanding awareness of what’s happening in all parts of the country and by whom, strengthening connections between people and resources that can support their work, and sharpening skills for learning as we go to inform ongoing improvements and choices about what to scale, with whom, where and how.

The KDE Hub Annual Symposium 2022 is happening in the early stages of a growth phase for mental health promotion in Canada. The event aims to:

• Grow awareness of mental health promotion innovations across the country. This includes the work of the Mental Health Promotion Innovation Fund, and initiatives that address determinants of mental health while leading with other issues.
• Grow connections with resources that can advance mental health promotion efforts. This includes gaining access to people, organizations, knowledge, and practical tools that can support your work.
• Grow skills for learning about promising approaches for advancing mental health promotion. This includes co-designing priorities for what to learn and exploring ways of learning that are suitable for different worldviews, populations, and settings.

Event date: February 16-18, 2022

Highlights from the 2022 Symposium