Thank you for voting for the “Can You Feel It?” mental health initiative in the Aviva Community Fund. In just over 1 week “Can You Feel It?” generated over 5,500 votes. Unfortunately, did not make it as a Finalists, but we will continue to look for new funding avenues to launch this program.
What is “Can You Feel It?”
“Can You Feel It?” is a multifaceted program for students to build the necessary life skills to manage and cope with stress in their everyday lives. By helping students understand how their bodies react to individual stress, they can learn to cope with stress in a healthy way. The heart of the program is fostering individual resiliency among students and empowering them to start building and planning their own life design.
In order to build this resiliency, “Can You Feel It?” helps to educate students and communities on how to live their best life through holistic health. The program is comprised of four categories to promote coping with stress and dealing with mental health challenges: Chill, Chat, Fuel, and Play.
Chill
Chill teaches students how to relax using a multitude of different techniques including journaling, teaching youth how to “unplug” and adopting mindfulness techniques and strategies into their daily lives.
Chat
Chat empowers students to open up and reach out to family, friends, teachers or community resources when they need someone to talk to. For the purposes of our project, we would also be including a bi-monthly walk-in counselling clinic at each school so that students have access to counselling.
Fuel
Fuel teaches students the good food they need to power their bodies and how certain foods can impact our mental health and stress negatively.
Play
Play encourages students to use physical activity to cope with stress. We would create many different opportunities to get students engaged in physical activity including dance, yoga classes, drumming circles, and a Winter Classic Hockey game between schools.
Background
The “Can You Feel It?” program was designed by The Sudbury & District Health Unit’s School Health Promotion Team. It was adopted locally by the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit after administered surveys among students identified stress management as a significant health priority.
In the spring of 2017, CFSSC began to deliver workshops at St. Theresa’s Catholic High School in partnership with the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit. “Can You Feel It?” is a program that fits well with the vision and mandate of our agency. It facilitates community partnerships by building bridges, aims to build holistic health into the culture of the community, and addresses prevention strategies for youth and mental health.
Not only will the program be delivered to youth, but the language “Chill, Chat, Fuel, Play” will be integrated throughout the school, through education with the students’ parents, and throughout the community. The project aims to service youth but to also change the culture of the community it is delivered in.
The support and positive feedback of this program’s potential has been tremendous. Thank you again to everyone who voted and helped create awareness for Can You Feel It? We promise to work tirelessly to secure funding to get this program launched in Simcoe County in the near future.
