Youth Mental Health and Well-Being

We create spaces for youth to engage and support other youth.

 

Over the past year we have formed a working group of youth who are keen to address what they have experienced in cultural communities and explore ways for their cultural communities to be actively engaged in reducing the stigma of youth mental health.

While there are already many services available, the concern is that due to the enduring stigma around mental health, communities have not identified the need to support mental health and wellbeing for youth as a priority.

We know that mental health organizations generally agree that there are a number of ways to work towards reducing stigma including but not limited to:

  • talking openly about mental health;
  • educating oneself and others;
  • being conscious of the language one uses in these discussions;
  • encouraging conversations that include physical and mental health;
  • focusing on positive wellbeing in addition to mental health challenges;
  • and reducing the psychological safety experiences of community members, etc.

We believe that CMCCF has a role in its engagement with a number of cultural communities and allies to incorporate these various strategies into the approaches we take to train community engagement facilitators and mental health navigators. We strive to create safe spaces for community engagement cafes, where youth will be able to engage and support other youth in a culturally safe and affirming context. We also aim to collaborate with cultural communities to create messaging that will convey positive and factual information about youth mental health and wellbeing.

 

Connecting Youth for a Discussion on Mental Health

Watch the video below of a recent youth panel discussion on mental health.

This is the panel of young folks that we formed to present opinions, ideas, challenges and possibilities after our AGM in November 2020. The focus was to discuss current and future approaches to strengthen supports for cultural community youth striving to attain their wellbeing and mental health in times of COVID and disruption.

A Message to Our Community

After years of dedicated leadership, our Director Martin will be stepping down as CMCCF enters an exciting new chapter. We are deeply grateful for everything he has brought to the Coalition of Manitoba Cultural Communities for Families, and we look forward to what lies ahead together.

As we navigate this transition, we welcome your questions, thoughts, and support. For any inquiries, please reach out to Florence at floxy166@yahoo.ca — she will be happy to hear from you.

Thank you for being part of our community.

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Purpose

The Purpose of These Peace-First: CollaborationNet Pages These pages exist to share what we have learned. Over the past year, Peace-First: CollaborationNet has operated as a time-limited demonstration initiative, which is a space to test ideas, host conversations, and discover what might grow when peace is placed at the center. Conversations took root in informal Peace-First Hubs across Winnipeg, Thompson, Brandon, and Portage la Prairie, with related gatherings in Vancouver and Toronto. Toronto now helps convene national roundtable conversations, linking local dialogue with a broader Canadian exchange. What began as small, local discussions has become more connected — not through expansion or centralization, but through coherence. Across regions, shared themes, tensions, and hopes are emerging. This webpage documents that journey. It gathers reflections, materials, and learning from Hub conversations so others can understand what has been explored and carry it forward. From the beginning, Peace-First was designed as a seed-planting initiative, formally concluding March 31, 2026. Its focus has been to explore how individuals and cultural communities understand inner peace, collective vision, community cohesion, and cultural dignity and visibility. The Hubs are volunteer-led spaces where community connectors and members gather to listen, reflect, and imagine what a peaceful geographic and cultural community might look like in practice. Along the way, we developed background papers, reflection documents, and practical toolkits shaped by lived experience in Manitoba and beyond. This page now serves as a living repository within the Peace-First Library, offering capacity-building tools, framing papers, hub guidance, and shared learning that communities can adapt to their own realities. The purpose is not to centralize authority, but to make learning accessible. Peace-First Hubs are community-led and partner-supported — grounded in relationship, not hierarchy. Supported by ACOMI, ECCM, Palaver Hut, MIA, cultural community members across the country, and allies such as MANSO, Mediation Services, CanU Canada, and PCHS, this work moves through partnership rather than control. This initiative has been made possible through the principal financial support of the Department of Canadian Heritage, with a supportive role played by The Winnipeg Foundation. Their investment has allowed these conversations, materials, and connections to take shape. These materials are not instructions to replicate. They are tools to adapt. This page is more than documentation. It is an invitation. Peace-First is not about imposing a uniform model. It is about strengthening conditions for dialogue, cohesion, and shared responsibility before a crisis. If this resonates, we invite you to explore further, join a national roundtable call, or consider what it would mean to host or support a conversation in your own community. Join a national roundtable call. Complete the survey. The seeds have been planted. What grows next depends on all of us.

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