Mental Health: Awareness and Education
Categories:
- Mental health,
- Social environment,
- Community,
- Facilities & organizations,
- Healthcare facilities,
- Schools,
- Workplace,
Awareness and Education
Research shows that stigma around mental illness often prevents people from asking for help and threatens recovery.1 Awareness and education campaigns can normalize mental illness, and help to reduce negative perceptions and common misunderstandings of mental health.
Students, residents, local businesses and service organizations rallied to encourage getting out in nature and taking a walk – both excellent ways to support mental wellness.
Ways to get started
- Narrow down a topic area for your campaign based on community interest (men’s mental health, suicide awareness, addictions, loneliness, mental health literacy).
- Invite people with lived experience to co-create your local campaign.
- Identify local resources for your campaign; then link to regional, national and international experts and organizations (for speakers, material, volunteers and marketing).
- Remove barriers to access by providing transportation, childcare and/or food for participants attending activities, where possible
- Create a comfortable and inclusive environment.2,3
- Use positive messaging to reduce stigma.
- Be culturally sensitive and flexible.
- Work with your municipality to incorporate opportunities for social connection into community plans. Municipal plans and policies on housing, natural environments, food systems and neighbourhood design can support social connection and have a positive impact on mental health.
Amplify your impact
For further action to promote/improve mental health in your community, see:
- Facilitating links and access to mental health resources and services strategy
- Facilitate and support volunteerism strategy
- Gardening activities strategy
- Arts-based activities strategy
- Healthy Communities by Design
Multi-component community-wide interventions that increase awareness about and provide opportunities for positive mental health in your community will have greater impact than implementing single, one-off strategies.
Evaluate impact
Evaluation measures the impact of all the hard work that went into developing a community initiative. Evaluating impact examines:
- What you expect to learn or change
- What you measure and report
- How to measure impact
What you expect to learn about awareness and education may include:
- Learning that the strategy was implemented as planned
- Learning that the strategy reached those you wanted to reach
- Increased knowledge on topic
- Increased mental health literacy
External Resources
#308 conversations by the Mental Health Commission of Canada
A kit to support community leaders to host local conversations on suicide prevention
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
Resources on an array of mental health topics
Alberta Health Services Addiction and Mental Health Resources
Useful resources, tools, programs and services to support individuals and communities
Best Practice Guidelines for Mental Health Promotion Programs
Online guides for promoting positive mental health across the life span
Canadian Mental Health Association
Advocacy, programs and resources to prevent mental health problems, support recovery and resilience
Mental Health Literacy
This guide documents the steps we took, and the lessons we learned along the way, in our Dementia Friendly Communities pilot project. It is intended to be used as a guide to creating a Dementia Friendly Community in other communities. You will find recommended steps, helpful tips, case studies and resources to guide you on your journey.
Mental Health: Awareness and Education
- Minister of Health and Long-Term Care Advisory Group. Respect, recovery, resilience: Recommendations for Ontario's mental health and addictions strategy. Toronto (ON): Minister's Advisory Group; 2010. Available from: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/common/ministry/publications/reports/mental_health/mentalhealth_rep.pdf.
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Coexisting severe mental illness and substance misuse: Community health and social care services. NICE guideline. London (UK): NICE; 2016. Available from: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng58.
- Mental Health Commission of Canada (2014). 308 Conversations found on: www.mentalhealthcommission.ca/308conversations.
