Mental Health Promotion Programs

Social prescribing is a care approach that involves collaborations between community and clinical care to improve health outcomes. In this webinar, Sonia Hsiung (Director, Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing) as well as Caitlin Muhl, Le-Tien Bhaskar, and Niloufar Aran (Canadian Social Prescribing Student Collective) introduce the concept of social prescribing and discuss potential opportunities to apply this approach to post-secondary contexts to support student mental health and wellbeing. 

In this webinar, 2021 Collaborations for Change Seed Grant awardees, Rita Hanoski and Jocelyn Orb (University of Saskatchewan), share information regarding the need for more mental health and wellbeing supports for international, Indigenous, and historically marginalized students and the opportunities within their culturally appropriate outreach programming from both student and wellness staff perspectives.

A first part to the Anti-Oppressive Practice in Action Toolkit, this resource by the Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health seeks to assist those supporting post-secondary students in understanding anti-oppressive practice, its intersection with mental health, and importance to work on campuses. 

This Healthy Minds | Healthy Campuses outlines both general harm reduction strategies and those specific to cannabis, nicotine, opioids, caffeine and other stimulants, with examples from BC post-secondary institutions.

This webinar hosted by the Center for Innovation in Campus Mental Health (CICMH) provides an unofficial kick-off to the development of the CICMH Student Athlete Mental Health Playbook. This resource will be a key area of focus for 2021 as CICMH looks to support the ongoing development of athletic and academic programming that prioritizes the mental health and wellness of student athletes.

Hosted by the Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health, this webinar will explore how experiences of grief and loss may be impacting members of our campus community and how a deeper understanding of these concepts can help us move forward.

The Mental Health on Campus Podcast by the Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health (CICMH) explores mental health topics that impact post-secondary students.

Developed by the University of Calgary, Roots of Resiliency, is a seven-week program designed to foster resilience, support academic success and help students navigate through change and challenging times.

Hosted by the Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health, this webinar discusses the disruption caused by the ongoing pandemic, and the challenges faced by students, faculty, service staff and administrators.  

Prepared by the Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health (CICMH), the graduate student mental health toolkit is a guide to supporting students and is part of a province-wide effort to enhance student mental health by promoting positive mental health and well-being at post-secondary institutions. The toolkit aims to provide guidance on how to support graduate students, whether in need of mental health and addictions supports or not, and the suggestions provided are meant to enhance campus experiences for graduate students in the long term.

This webinar hosted by the Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health will discuss how transitioning into post-secondary may be a difficult process for students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on engagement with both grade 12 and first-year PSE students, this webinar will provide front-line staff with a framework on how to build and bridge support for students.

Presented by the Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health, the More Feet on the Ground (MFOTG): Recognize, Respond, Refer and Reflect Trainer Workshop is aimed at trainers who want to learn how to deliver MFOTG course on their campus.  The MFOTG course prepares campus staff and student leaders to support students on campus who may be living with mental health concerns.

The North American Observatory on Health Systems and Policies conducted a rapid scoping review of the literature on post-secondary institutions’ (PSI) initiatives for student mental health and wellbeing, in addition to government and public policy to support PSIs. The review describes current initiatives and government supports in both Canada and other select countries, ranging from campus psychoeducation courses to government mental health strategies. The review summarizes promising initiatives and describes key recommendations to improve PSI mental health on Canadian campuses, including incorporating mental health promotion into all components of post-secondary institutions, use and evaluation of best practices, adoption of technology to improve access, creating strategic partnerships, and mental health literacy training.

In the 2020 joint report, In It Together: Foundations for Promoting Mental Wellness in Campus Communities, Ontario’s Universities, Colleges Ontario, Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) and College Student Alliance (CSA) put forward their recommendations for helping meet the growing challenge of student mental health.

Presented by Michael Lee, Senior Instructor with Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia and Patty Hambler, Director, Health Promotion & Education on the UBC Vancouver campus for the Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health (CICMH) on October 30 2019, this webinar shares research and innovative projects that creatively engage instructors in enhancing student wellbeing from a large Canadian university.

Presented by Dr Leah Goodman for the Center for Innovation in Campus Mental Health (CICMH) on September 17 2019, this webinar discusses the process of introducing wellness coursework and the clear benefits of integrating it into the university or college experience.

The Strengths-Based Resilience program is designed to help students develop resilience. The program defines resilience as the ability to cope with adversity and invites students to reflect actively on their experiences that demonstrate various aspects of their resilience. By reflecting back on these experiences, and engaging in other exercises, they learn skills and strategies to build their resilience.

Developed by the Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health (CICMH), this guide explores issues related to cannabis use and provides readers with an overview of health approaches that can reduce the harms and risks associated with it.

Reducing Alcohol Use and Related Problems Among College Students: Guide to Best Practices

Based on Corey Keyes’ model (Keyes, 2007; Keyes et al., 2011), the Flourish program teaches students to use their strengths to do well and feel well, pursue academic and meaningful co-curricular activities and learn skills to bounce back from setbacks quickly and adaptively.  

The University of Alberta (U of A) Suicide Prevention Framework outlines a five-part framework for enhancing suicide prevention. Specifically, the report identifies 36 recommendations across the five categories to build upon student, staff, and faculty mental health and wellness services and to improve the capacity and capability for suicide prevention at the U of A.

ThriveRU is made up of 4 session resilience training program designed to teach the five factor model of resilience (mindfulness, gratitude, optimism, self-compassion, and grit). This program is offered separately for students, faculty and staff at Ryerson University.

With consideration of the prevalence, motivations, and impacts of cannabis, the guide offers potential communication and messaging strategies to encourage lower-risk cannabis use.

As part of a series, this Healthy Minds | Healthy Campuses resource offers considerations for the promotion of low-risk drinking guidelines and includes tools to support the implementation of such initiatives.

This online, interactive inventory is designed to help colleges, institutes, and universities self-evaluate and plan action systemically supporting mental health on campus.

This guide by Healthy Minds | Healthy Campuses outlines the potential approach for facilitators to plan and implement a dinner and dialogue on campus drinking culture, including resources to stimulate conversation.

The Guide to Campus Mental Health Action Planning was developed by the JED Foundation and the Education Development Center. The guide provides a step-by-step process to assist institutions with creating robust mental health promotion programs that can support effective suicide preventions and interventions for students.

The Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental developed a toolkit to provide post-secondary campus stakeholders with relevant information to guide the development or improvement of sexual violence programming and survivor support resources. The toolkit highlights the prevalence of sexual violence on campuses, the impact of sexual violence on mental health, and different best and promising practices to support survivors of sexual violence.