PARticipating in My Mental Health Care was designed to help young people in Ontario and across Canada find and access mental health and addiction services and support best suited for them. This toolkit includes a variety of information, reflective activities, and fillable worksheets that can be personalized to support youth as unique, active participants along their mental health or addiction care journey.

This toolkit is an informative, empowering, and actionable resource that was co-designed by mindyourmind and a group of youth and caregivers in Ontario. The concept and contents of this toolkit were based on a research project led by the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Research Institute and Knowledge Institute on Child and Youth Mental Health and Addictions and funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The project focused on understanding how the COVID-19 pandemic changed how young people learn about supports for mental health and addictions and how they access those supports.

The project used a participatory action research (PAR) approach, which involved people whom the research was about as important leaders and “PAR-tners” in the project team.

Terms used in this toolkit: We use the terms young people, young person, or youth to describe people between childhood and adulthood (the exact ages can vary). Related terms include adolescents, teens, or young adults.