CENTRE WELLINGTON – The Grove Wellington Guelph, in collaboration with the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Waterloo Wellington, is launching an eight-week course for youth called Living Life to the Full.
The program will be open to the public starting Oct. 26 and will take place from 4 to 5:30pm every Thursday at The Grove Wellington Guelph in Fergus.
The course runs until Dec. 14.
“From past participants, we’ve heard that it’s really engaging and really fun,” said Katrina Burch, team lead of mental health promotion and education at CMHA Waterloo Wellington.
“People learn great tools that they can take away with them.”
The course is new to The Grove, but is a program that the CMHA has been running for three years now.
“There is an adult version as well as a youth version, [and] we’ve partnered with The Grove to offer [youth] their space because it’s the best place to offer youth programming in the region,” said Burch.
The program with CMHA has been offered virtually and in-person out of the Waterloo location.
“We’re moving back to more in-person training, and it was a natural choice for us to host this at The Grove to engage youth, just knowing the increased complexities of the post-pandemic world we’re living,” she added.
Living life to the full is a group-oriented course which is centred around principles of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT).
CBT has been proven to increase quality of life and is known to be one of the most affective forms of psychological therapy, according to a CMHA press release.
The course stemmed from a recent study by Waterloo-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health which found the COVID-19 pandemic still has negative impacts on youth.
“Between Grade 4 and Grade 12, there was an increase of students that were experiencing mental health challenges,” said Burch.
“We’re working with community partners to develop clear pathways for accessing service,” she added.
“So that’s part of what this youth forum in November will be doing.”
The deadline to register for Living Life to the Full is Oct. 20.
To register visit cmhaww.ca/events and click “view detail” under “Living Life to the Full for Youth 12-18 years old.”
If you miss the deadline, Burch encourages those still interested to reach out to her at education@cmhaww.ca to see if there are any open spots available.
Burch added there may also be opportunity for the course in the new year at The Grove, so keep an eye out on CMHA Waterloo Wellington’s social media and website at cmhaww.ca/events.
For more information about The Grove, visit thegrovehubs.ca.
