Mental Health Promotion Innovation Fund
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About the fund
The Mental Health Promotion Innovation Fund is formerly known as the Innovation Strategy. It provides national funding to support the delivery of innovative, community-based programs in mental health promotion for:
- infants
- children and youth
- young adults
- caregivers of children and youth
Funding supports priority groups susceptible to mental health inequities, such as:
- First Nations, Inuit and Métis
- LGBTQ2+
- newcomers and refugees
- people with other socio-economic risk factors
Funding helps to generate new knowledge about what programs and policies work, for whom and in what contexts. The aim is to:
- address health equity
- build protective factors
- reduce risk factors at the individual and community levels
- address the underlying determinants of health at the population level
This approach seeks to contribute to health equity through scale up and systems change to promote positive mental health in Canada.
Phased funding model
The program's phased approach to funding begins with an initial design phase through to eventual scale up of mental health promotion interventions, pending assessment. The timeline for funded projects follows 3 phases:
- Phase 1: up to 18 months for initial design, delivery and partnership development
- Phase 2: up to 4 years for full implementation with partners to deliver the intervention across settings and evaluate
- Phase 3: up to 3 years for scale up to expand implementation to achieve system-wide impact for sustainability
An innovative approach
This innovative approach to mental health promotion focuses on 6 key characteristics:
- support for social innovation
- investment in large-scale projects
- support, capacity-building and flexibility for projects
- special focus on knowledge development and exchange; and evaluation
- emphasis on multi-sectoral partnerships from within and outside the health sector
- spirit of continuous learning and critical reflection
Figure 1: Text description
Action and Knowledge on the Determinants of Health Among People and Communities in Canada.
- Equality
- Equality means that everyone is given the same support, without considering what each person needs to succeed.
- Equity
- Equity means everyone is given the support they need to succeed.
- Removing barriers
- By addressing the cause of the inequity and removing systemic barriers, each person can now succeed without the need for support.
The Public Health Agency of Canada's Mental Health Promotion Innovation Fund is a national grants and contributions program. It provides multi-year funding and support to population health interventions across Canada using a population health research approach. The Mental Health Promotion Innovation Fund and its funded projects aim to discover what programs and policies work, for whom and in what context. To learn more, contact us at: phac.mhpif-fipsm.aspc@canada.ca
Funded projects
Examples of funded projects include:
- a school-based program for newcomers to foster a positive sense of self and belonging
- cooking and nutrition programming that emphasizes healthy relationships with the self and others
- arts-based methods that allow for individuals to process trauma and express themselves and their cultural identity
- programming to support transgendered youth and their parents in learning strategies to cope with gender-based discrimination
The Mental Health Promotion Innovation Fund projects are supported by a Knowledge Development and Exchange Hub. Visit the KDE Hub website to learn more about the Hub and the funded projects.