About Towards Flourishing
Emotional distress in the perinatal period has been deemed a public health concern because it is highly prevalent and is believed to adversely affect child development. Results from Manitoba’s universal screening at birth suggest that 11% to 14% of women experience some degree of post-natal depression or anxiety. The Towards Flourishing Project is a new initiative which promotes the mental well-being of parents and their families through the development and addition of a mental health promotion strategy to Manitoba’s Families First Home Visiting Program. Positive mental health, as well as mental illness and distress are focused on. This multilayered Strategy includes simple and practical activities that have shown effectiveness in rigorous evaluation studies.
The main goals of the Towards Flourishing Project are:
- To improve the mental health and decrease mental illness/distress of parents and their children in the Families First Home Visiting Program.
- To strengthen public health workforce capacity to address mental health promotion and support collaboration between Mental Health and Public Health systems.
- To create and sustain mechanisms for effective mental health promotion interventions in community settings across Manitoba.
Towards Flourishing Poster (PDF)
Table Talks:
In Towards Flourishing Table Talk 1, Public Health and Families First Home Visiting staffs discuss “why Towards Flourishing is good for all families” and “how the Everyday Strategies help”. Staff members share anecdotes of their experience using the TF curriculum with their Families First families.
In Towards Flourishing Table Talk 2, Public Health and Families First Home Visiting staffs share stories about the experiences of the families that have been introduced to Towards Flourishing, and how the Towards Flourishing curriculum has helped improve the overall wellbeing of those families.
