Minding Our Bodies launches website - an active living project for community mental health
Minding Our Bodies: Physical Activity for Mental Health is a two-year project (2008-2010). The goal is to increase capacity within the community mental health system in Ontario to promote active living and to create new opportunities for physical activity for people with serious mental illness to support recovery. The project website was launched today to begin raising awareness of the project and to seek expressions of interest from organizations that may want to participate in local pilot programs in 2009.
Minding Our Bodies will develop a toolkit and training workshop to support mental health agencies and community partners that want to start a physical activity program. The toolkit will be piloted in three communities in Ontario. A formal request for proposals will be issued in January 2009, and expressions of interest are now being accepted through the project website.
An environmental scan is currently in progress to gather information about existing physical activity programs, and to identify start-up challenges and program success factors. A province-wide survey is being conducted among mental health service providers, including organizations that currently have a physical activity program as well as those that don't. A link to the survey is available on the website.
Minding Our Bodies is an initiative of the Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario, in partnership with YMCA Ontario and York University's Faculty of Health, with support from the Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion through the Communities in Action Fund.
For more information, visit the website at www.mindingourbodies.ca