The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, in partnership with Toronto Public Health and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, has released a new mental health promotion guideline for refugees. Titled, “Best Practice Guidelines for Mental Health Promotion Programs: Refugees,” this resource is the third in a series of online guides for promoting positive mental health across the lifespan. This resource provides health and social service providers with current evidence-based approaches in the application of mental health promotion concepts and principles specifically for refugee populations.
This guideline is intended to support practitioners, caregivers and interested individuals by providing best practice approaches to mental health promotion initiatives and programs to serve refugees. The guideline consists of background information on refugee populations in Canada; a theoretical context for mental health promotion, including definitions and underlying concepts, with a focus on promoting resilience; 13 best practice guidelines for mental health promotion initiatives for refugees; and examples of outcome and process indicators for measuring program success. The guideline also includes a worksheet that can be used by practitioners to plan and implement mental health promotion initiatives, a list of services and web resources, a glossary of words commonly used in mental health promotion, and references used to develop these guidelines.
To access the guideline, visit www.knowledgex.camh.net.