Youth Well-Being & Mental Health
We believe that being well is central to young people becoming happy, healthy, and engaged individuals and community members. While our major focus is on mental health, we take a holistic approach that connects mental health to well-being more broadly. We support initiatives in Canada that focus on well-being and mental health awareness, prevention, and early intervention.
Our strategies take a prevention and early intervention approach because we know how difficult it can be to address well-being and mental health issues once they become entrenched. We focus on youth between the ages of 12 to 25 because this is a critical time of transition from childhood to adulthood.
Our strategies focus on building and increasing access to supports, community, and networks to help young people build awareness, develop fundamental skills to navigate life’s challenges, and get help when in need. The initiatives we fund take a data-informed approach to understanding who they are reaching, with what impact, and who is missing so that we can adapt or support specific initiatives for young people who are harder to reach or require different types of supports.
Post-Secondary Institutions
We work with post-secondary partners to re-imagine the student university and college experience. We support initiatives aimed at creating campuses on which students build community, are able to recognize and address academic, financial, and mental health issues promptly and effectively, and can manage the overwhelm they sometimes feel about the world and their future.
Community Organizations
We support national and regional youth-serving organizations in increasing their reach and capacity to meet the heightened needs of the populations they serve. This includes developing and delivering a range of programs that focus on early intervention, mental health literacy, coping skills, and empowering young people to find purpose, joy, and hopefulness.
