Promoting Mental Health for Disasters & Community Mental Health Promotion

This 2-hour online interactive workshop is to learn about stress, identify stressors, and recognize personal signs of stress. Several coping skills and strategies are explored, and participants will leave the workshop with a personalized stress management plan.

We have some D-Stress Breathing Techniques videos you can use whenever you feel stressed, or anytime you want to feel calmer.

To register for an upcoming workshop, check out our Workshop Calendar.

We may not realize it, but our breathing becomes more rapid and shallow when our stress response is activated (which may happen more than we think). Breathing techniques are widely used because they are effective in relieving stress in the moment. Taking time to slow down our breath and breathing more deeply can help us self-regulate. This can help us choose how to “respond” to a situation rather than “react” in the moment.

Here are some techniques that you can try at home. If at any time you feel uncomfortable, just go back to the normal rhythm of your breath.

1. Even-Paced Breathing: this video contains verbal instructions and an easy-to-follow breath pacer. (Requires sound). 
2. Box-Breathing: This silent video will help us pace our breathing around a box. Please read the instructions beside the video before beginning the technique.

You can do breathing techniques whenever you feel stressed, or anytime you want to feel calmer.

E-Prep focuses on the importance of practical preparedness and psychosocial health and wellness in the event of an emergency or disaster. The objective of this workshop is to build capacity by promoting personal preparedness and cultivating psychological resilience. Facilitators will encourage individuals to discuss, explore, discover and develop their own personal emergency plan. The best preparedness kit is created by you to meet your own personal needs.

To register for an upcoming workshop, check out our Workshop Calendar.

Some Emergency Preparedness resources that might be helpful for you include:

• E-Prep Guidebook
• E-Prep Resource List
• E-Prep My Emergency Plan

Psychological First Aid is an internationally recognized method of support intended to help people during and immediately after a disaster or emergency. It uses a holistic, community wellness approach to help reduce levels of emotional distress for individuals, families, and communities through practical care, compassion, connection, and support from others.  

This free interactive 3-hour workshop and aims to share knowledge, increase confidence, and build the skills needed to provide inclusive, community-focused psychological support in a disaster. 

To register for an upcoming workshop, check out our Workshop Calendar.

This free interactive 3.5 hour workshop covers the same content as the PFA Basic workshop but with a greater focus on the needs of Indigenous peoples in a disaster. The goal is to support both Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants build the skills needed to provide inclusive and safe support in a disaster. 

This workshop does not teach participants about specific Indigenous beliefs, traditions, or histories. It’s intended to encourage participants to explore ways of offering support in a disaster that balances western and Indigenous views using a person-focused lens rather than a pan-Indigenous lens.  

To register for an upcoming workshop, check out our Workshop Calendar.

This skill-building series was designed to enhance participants’ knowledge and skills to support healthy relationships with self and others. Topics covered in this series include: determining core values, setting personal boundaries, improving communication, and increasing self-awareness and self-regulation. Adults can register for any of the topics they would like to learn about.  

• Module 1: Relationship with Self. Knowing ourselves can help us define what is important to us in relationships. This workshop helps us to learn about ourselves through identifying our personal values. This can increase our ability to be more intentional about the choices that we make.   
• Module 2: Boundaries. Boundaries help us to support our sense of self as being different from others, empowering us to make choices within our relationships. This workshop looks at what boundaries are, where they come from and some skills to establish them.
• Module 3: Enhancing Communication. This workshop explores communication methods and styles that can affect how our message is delivered and received. We will look at how to apply skills that can enhance the way we communicate with others.   
• Module 4: Listen to Understand. Listening skills improve our relationships by helping us to connect with others and their perspective. This workshop looks at skills that can help us to listen and respond with intention.   

To register for an upcoming workshop, check out our Workshop Calendar.

Wellness Exchange is a 5-week series of skills-building wellness educational workshops intended to help individuals increase their coping and self-efficacy through self-exploration and self-management.

• Week 1 Problem-Solving: Learning ways to problem-solve effectively helps us address the entire situation, influence what we can, and increase our confidence in the decisions that we make.
• Week 2 Positive Activities: Positive activities provide us with opportunities for enjoyment, improve our mood, increase our sense of control over our life, and create hope.
• Week 3 Managing Reactions: Learning to effectively manage our emotions is important, as it helps protect our well-being, maintain our healthy connections, make effective decisions, and respond in healthy ways.
• Week 4 Helpful Thinking: Our thoughts have an impact on how we see the world, how we feel, and how we behave. Shifting our unhelpful thinking to more helping thinking improves our mood and reduce the intensity of our reactions.
• Week 5 Healthy Connections: Social support and connecting with others helps us feel a sense of belonging and reduces isolation. Building healthy social connections helps increase our confidence and our overall well-being.

To register for an upcoming workshop, check out our Workshop Calendar.

This five chapter learning module was design to help existing PFA Responders refresh their Psychological First Aid knowledge and skills prior to being deployed in a disaster.

For more information about this module and to register, visit the Addiction and Mental Health – Health Professionals page. 

Note: This learning module is not intended to replace full Psychological First Aid training. 

If you're interested in becoming a PFA responder and to register for a Psychological First Aid workshop, check out our upcoming Workshop Calendar.

PFA Responders who would to improve their Psychological First Aid skills for supporting children and youth prior to being deployed in a disaster.
Note: This mini module is not intended to replace full Psychological First Aid training.

To view this module, visit the Addiction and Mental Health - Health Professional page. 

If you're interested in becoming a PFA responder and to register for a Psychological First Aid workshop, check out our upcoming Workshop Calendar.

This informative toolkit is for first responders, helpers, and leaders involved in disaster and emergency response work, as well as a wide range of crisis support work. Inside, you will find resources and strategies to help you and your organization increase your knowledge and improve your skills and capacity for your personal wellbeing, team wellness, and organizational planning to support self-care.

The Toolkit includes:

• Guidebook for an individual or organizations.
• A workbook with self-reflective activities, team discussion questions, assessment tools, and organizational planning resources to support individual and workplace self-care for an individual or an organization.
• PowerPoint for individuals or organizations with key concepts to use in a presentation or for information to guide you and your organization.

We would really like to hear from you on how you are using this resource. Please take the time to provide us with as much information as you feel comfortable with providing!