Two leading keynote speakers 
Through pre-recorded presentations, Drs. Carol Hopkins and Kwame McKenzie will offer ideas for how to help mental health promotion flourish in Canada. This is quite a pair; both leading thinkers and actors in the field of mental health, both advisors to ministers at provincial/territorial and federal levels, both Canadian delegates to the United Nations. Dr. Hopkins is the executive director of the Thunderbird Partnership Foundation and is of the Lenape Nation at Moraviantown, Ontario. Carol’s remarks will draw on leading contributions to national policy frameworks for Indigenous wellness and substance use and help us consider mental health promotion with two-eyed seeing. Dr. McKenzie is CEO of the Wellesley Institute, Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and Director of Health Equity at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. His perspective will emphasize social causes of illness and the development of effective, equitable social policy and health systems, including in response to the pandemic.  

On day two, the keynote speakers will be joined by three panelists: 

• Dr. Claire Betker, Scientific Director, National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health 
• Pascale Mantoura, Conseillère scientifique séniore, santé mentale, Institut national de santé publique du Québec 
• Dr. Brenda Restoule, Chief Executive Officer, First Peoples Wellness Circle

Guided by participant questions, dialogue will explore actions most needed for advancing mental health promotion that aspires to the Hub vision, especially mental health promotion that is culturally safe and equitable.  

Knowledge development facilitated by the KDE Hub is primarily across the MHP-IF projects. This year’s session on findings from the MHP-IF adds another year of project experiences to findings that were shared last year. Insights include how projects continue to adapt to evolving pandemic conditions. How can this new knowledge be used to its greatest potential? This is a question we will put to panelists with rich and varied experience in linking knowledge to action: 

• Dr. Christine Chambers, Professor, Dalhousie University; Scientific Director, Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR IHDCYH) 
• Stephanie Priest, Executive Director, Mental Health and Wellbeing Division, Centre for Health Promotion, Public Health Agency of Canada 
• Valerie Salt, Senior Research & Policy Associate, PolicyWise for Children & Families 
• Louis Sorin, CEO and President, End Homelessness Winnipeg (Retired)

Based on commitments to better understand the growing field of mental health promotion and to connect those within it, the KDE Hub regularly seeks and shares timely resources, events and research. Here are a few items that caught our attention recently: 

• The Chief Public Health Officer’s report for 2021 was published in December. Entitled, A Vision to Transform Canada’s Public Health System, it recognizes the importance of upstream actions for (mental) health and identifying, scaling and spreading effective local interventions (see page 83).  

• Also published last month, the U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Protecting Youth Mental Health outlines the pandemic’s impacts on the mental health of youth and families. While written for the American context, it provides information of potential interest in Canada, including recommendations for individuals, families, community organizations, technology companies, governments, and others to improve the mental health of children, adolescents and young adults.  

• The recent 10th Global Conference on Health Promotion has the Geneva Charter for Well-being as one of its outcomes. 

• PrevNet hosted a webinar on Indigenous Determinants of Health featuring Shelley Cardinal, Director, Indigenous Relations, Canadian Red Cross. She highlights a circle of wellness, rooted in First Nations, Métis and Inuit cultures and ways of being.   

• From the Young Canadians Roundtable on Health and The Sandbox Project, In Their Own Words is a collection of youth works giving voice to their experiences of the pandemic. 

• The National Centre for Research Methods in the UK has published a guide on adapting in-situ research methodologies during the COVID-19 pandemic. In-situ methodologies are multi-sensory qualitative approaches immersed in place and time.  

Let us know if there are new resources, events or research you would like us to share. We love to hear from you: kdehub@uwaterloo.ca.