This International Firefighters Day, Movember and the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), Ontario Division are working to raise awareness for firefighter mental health by highlighting the newly Movember-funded CMHA Ontario program Resilient MindsTM. The program – which runs from April 2022 to December 2023 – is dedicated to building resilience within fire teams and services across Ontario by educating, empowering, and equipping firefighters with the skills and resources to grow and maintain psychosocial wellness in an otherwise stressful profession.

Resilient MindsTM is one of four Canadian projects Movember has funded through the charity’s Veterans and First Responders Mental Health Grant Program launched in late 2021, an initiative aimed at identifying and evaluating programs that positively impact mental health and aim to prevent the suicide of veterans and first responders. For Resilient Minds, the Movember funding will go towards training peer instructors to deliver resources to their fire departments and adaptation of the program for other first responder communities (police and paramedics) in 2023. Resilient MindsTM will receive $423,000 in Movember funding by December 2023.

You can learn more about Movember and the Movember Veterans and First Responder Grant initiative at Movember.com. To learn more about Resilient Minds please visit ontario.cmha.ca