Implementing a mental health program requires significant time, training, and resources. It's important to choose a program that is a good fit for your school community in order to benefit the mental health and well-being of students and staff. To assist schools in the decision-making process, the BC Children’s Health Promotion and Schools team, in collaboration with researchers and educators, has developed a set of 15 guiding questions. The questions are available for download as a two-page PDF. 

In this video, Drs. Jacquie Maloney and Alex Gist walk through and discuss 15 questions to consider when choosing a mental health program.  

The Ministry of Education and Child Care has also developed a Decision-Making Tool as an optional toolkit to support educators in identifying appropriate, effective mental health and substance use resources (e.g. lessons, videos, websites and presenters) for their learners. The Decision-Making Tool is also available in French. Boards of Education are responsible for setting policies regarding learning resources. Mental health and substance use learning resources must align with local policies and the B.C. curriculum, be age-appropriate, and selected for use to support the delivery of a specific lesson, activity, or topic.

Dr. Jacquie Maloney -  Jacquie is a Health Promotion and Health Literacy Specialist with the BC Children’s Hospital Health Bridge Program. Jacquie completed their doctoral studies in Human Development, Learning and Culture at UBC, where they conducted program evaluation and implementation research with Dr. Kimberly Schonert-Reichl for more than a decade. 

Dr. Alex Gist - Alex is a Health Promotion Specialist with the BC Children’s Hospital Health Promotion and Schools team. He has worked in education for over 20 years in a variety of roles from teaching English Language Arts, to teaching English and skills to immigrant and refugee youth, managing SEL-based out-of-school time programs, and supporting schools to support the mental well-being of their students.