Improving Community Health and Prevention through the Mental and Emotional Well-being Priority Area

This session will focus on the National Prevention Strategy (NPS) Priority area of Mental Health and Emotional Well-being. Key recommendations from the NPS mental and emotional well-being include:
1) Promote positive early childhood development, including positive parenting and violence-free homes.
2) Facilitate social connectedness and community engagement across the lifespan.
3) Provide individuals and families with support necessary to maintain positive mental well-being.
4) Promote early identification of mental health needs and access to quality services.
Many communities nation-wide have been developing evidence-based approaches to promote mental health and emotional well-being. The results from studies evaluating these approaches, however, have been mixed.
In this session, we will carry out an active, participant engaged discussion of focused topics that will inform the NPS leadership of possible areas for technical assistance resource development and shared learning. The focused topics for discussion are: (a) Building partnerships across sectors and diverse contexts (b) finding common ground, decision-making and power sharing (c) policy development at the local level (upstream and downstream issues and ripple effects); (d) enhancing capacities, mutual learning and sustainability. A brief summary of our shared understanding and common concerns will be reported back to the larger session for a response and future action from the national NPS leadership.