Organizational Background
The Best Practices Network in Canadian Higher Education (BP-Net) is a national mental health community of practice and knowledge exchange network. Our aim is to promote and advance evidence-based post-secondary student mental health and wellness initiatives to improve Canadian post-secondary students’ well-being. The network focuses on strengthening the assessment and evaluation capacity of mental health and wellness centres in Canadian post-secondary institutions. We seek to set the standard for performance in the area of post-secondary mental health on Canadian campuses.
This initiative began through a formal partnership among the University of Toronto, Queen’s University, McGill University, and the University of British Columbia. The original vision was to establish a national online student mental health consortium to promote and advance current and new mental health initiatives, projects, programmes, and services that include assessment and evaluation methods with demonstrable outcomes.
Since inception, BP-Net has worked toward developing and promoting practical program and evaluation toolkits (i.e. program protocols, key performance indicators, outcome evaluation guides, logic models and benchmarks) to network members in the areas of health promotion, program and service delivery, and policy. BP-Net has also focused on informing emerging and best practices in campus mental health programming through support for practice-based evaluation projects, knowledge exchange and Canadian-specific national benchmarking.
In BP-Net you will find a collaborative team of engaged experts who are committed to gaining a greater understanding and provision of available resources and information on assessment and evaluation. Our goals are to build a unique and accessible platform that will facilitate collaborative partnerships among stakeholders committed to post-secondary student mental health and to disseminate evidence-informed practices to improve student mental health and wellness.
Mission
BP-Net is a national resource for all Canadian post-secondary institutions (PSIs) that seek to improve student success by focusing on advancing campus mental health and wellness capacity in terms of policies, systems, programs and initiatives.
BP-Net supports Canadian PSIs in the implementation of these policies, systems, programs and initiatives with the goal of creating healthier campus communities and improving the psychological wellbeing of students. Our efforts are guided by an evidence-informed approach, innovation, students’ diverse and emerging needs, and an emphasis on collaboration among participating institutions and partners.
Vision
We envision a Canada in which all post-secondary students experience positive mental health and wellness with support from their institutions and in which these institutions actively seek to promote student success in alignment with evidence-based best practices as reflected in national and provincial guiding standards and frameworks.
Our vision for BP-Net is that it provides the platform through which PSIs collaborate and share evidence-informed initiatives and resources, build relationships, innovate, and make progress toward our collective goal of improving the lives of Canadian post-secondary students.
Network Objectives
The Network aims to achieve its mission and vision through the following initiatives:
1. Infrastructure
- Establish a successful governance model and structure
- Create a robust and recognizable BP-Net brand
- Resolve outstanding intellectual property management issues
- Increase membership and diversify demographics
2. Resource Development
- Expand the BP-Net repository of data, tools and resources
3. Knowledge Exchange
- Support the operationalization of national and provincial guiding standards and frameworks at Canadian PSIs
- Ensure robust integration with other relevant networks and communities of practice
- Demonstrate our success via improved student-level mental health and wellness outcomes as measured by existing national assessment tools and tools developed by BP-Net and our partners
Funding for the Best Practices in Canadian Higher Ed: Making a positive impact on student mental health is generously provided by The Rossy Foundation.