CMHA Ontario joins individuals and organizations around the globe in celebrating International Self-Care Day on July 24, which aims to raise public awareness of the importance of self-care to stay healthy and prevent or delay illness.
A self-care task should not be big or complicated – in fact, when energy and resolve is low, it’s important to make it as simple as possible. If you are wondering where to start, CMHA Ontario’s 15 minutes just for you resource is filled with self-care strategies and tips. Each tip only takes 15 minutes and is designed to help boost your mental, emotional, physical, social or spiritual health.
Prioritizing self-care can increase resiliency, which can be helpful when faced with problems, stress, and other difficult situations. CMHA Ontario offers BounceBack®: Reclaim your health, a free skill-building program designed to help adults and youth 15+ manage symptoms of depression and anxiety. This self-guided program offers telephone coaching, online videos and workbooks which you can do from the comfort of your home. Workbooks and coaching are available in multiple languages. For more information, visit bouncebackontario.ca.
While self-care is often thought of as something to be done as outside of work, it is more helpful to weave it into the workday to prevent burnout. CMHA offers a number of capacity-building workshops and resources to train employees on mental health awareness, intervention and prevention skills:
- Mental Health Works, which offers a suite of workshops that focus on specific mental health issues common to many workplaces, including Stress & Anxiety, Mental Health and Telework and many more.
- Resilient Minds, an evidence-informed, peer-to-peer, skill building program designed by and for firefighters across Canada helps to develop strategies to mitigate and better manage occupational stress and enhance personal resilience
- In the Know, a three-hour course supports the agriculture community with mental health literacy and suicide awareness training
- The Guardian Network, a volunteer suicide prevention network which supports Ontario’s farming community.
Farmers and their families can also receive mental health support farmers by calling the Farmer Wellness Initiative at 1-866-267-6255 to speak to a counsellor. Learn more at
farmerwellnessinitiative.ca.