RNAO’s Youth Wellness Champions Program celebrates a decade of helping students improve mental health in their communities.
For RN Teagan Venables, mental health came into sharp focus when he was a teenager. At 16, he came out as queer before starting Grade 11. It took some time to work through understanding and accepting his identity.
“I came out to my parents and that was a very difficult time in my life. I started going to counselling, but I didn’t want to go because of the stigma,” he says, noting he didn’t always see mental health in a positive light. Up until that point, he had never heard from friends or classmates that they were attending counselling. His only understanding of it came from television shows depicting it as something for people with serious issues. “I didn’t believe I would ever need counselling myself; it seemed aimed at individuals grappling with significant problems or psychiatric disorders,” he recalls.
His outlook changed in 2014, when he was approached by his guidance counsellor and asked if he wanted to be a youth champion to help support other students with their mental health needs. Since he had expressed interest in working in the health-care field and helping others, his counsellor felt he would be interested in the opportunity. He was, and he agreed to attend three days of in-person RNAO training to learn about mental health and wellbeing, building inclusive environments, and how to promote both within his school. Through a provincially funded program known then as the Youth Mental Health and Addiction Champions Program (now Youth Wellness Champions Program), he gained a better understanding of stress, positive coping strategies and the stigma around youth mental health. He became one of 55 students from 12 school boards across Ontario to join as the first-ever champions for the program.
When Venables completed the training, he returned to his school and started working with his peers to identify needs and collaborate on solutions to address those needs. They organized a de-stress week, created a ‘chill wellness’ room for students, and arranged yoga classes during lunch for peers who wanted to join. “We just tried to (design activities) that students could relate to,” he says, noting that many of the activities were easily transferrable to home or day-to-day life. Students really responded to these activities.
Throughout high school (2014-2017), Venables grew to appreciate the work he was doing for others and felt proud to destigmatize mental health. Beyond that, he was able to better understand on a personal level why mental health supports are so important. “Sharing knowledge and sharing awareness made such a difference in not only my life, but (the lives of) my friends and the whole school itself,” he says. Developing that foundational mental health knowledge and skill as a youth champion, and working with school nurses, helped him realize where he wanted to go with his career. “It helped me see that health care and focusing on mental health was where I wanted to go with my life.”
More than 3,600 youth champions have been part of RNAO’s program since its inception in 2014. They are students from more than 167 schools and 21 school boards across the province. To mark the 10th anniversary of the program, RNAO hosted a two-day Mental Health and Substance Use Summit: Stronger Together in March 2025. Venables, who is now working in Thunder Bay as an RN care coordinator with Ontario Health, was a conference panelist who shared details of his experience in high school, and his thoughts on the huge strides students, schools and public health units have made by being involved.
Kristi McCracken is a public health nurse with Grey Bruce Public Health. She is a founding YWC advisory member and was also a presenter at the summit. She says the program has given her health unit and school boards in her region an opportunity to work together in new ways. “(It) has allowed us to really become more involved and work on our relationship building.”
McCracken works with school mental health leads, adult allies and local youth to support training and identify opportunities for change in the school. Through implementation science, she facilitates and evaluates these activities, with youth leading the way. Since the early days, she has seen the program grow and adapt to meet students’ changing needs. Today’s training program doesn’t need to focus on definitions of stigma or mental health, since students already have a grasp of what those concepts are, she notes. “Ten years ago…the students…didn’t have the same knowledge that they do now.” Mental health education is now mandatory in the school curriculum. There is also an eagerness from students to be part of the program. Before, teachers and/or students would nominate peers to be youth champions. Now, the role is more open to everyone. “It’s more volunteer-based and students are excited and looking forward to being involved,” she says.
Stasia Starr, a public health nurse for the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, agrees that students enjoy being part of the program and are proactively leading school activities. “In my experience, (students) often have an idea what they want to change in the school…they just need the support to feel empowered to make the changes that they know are important,” she says.
Starr also suggests the program wouldn’t be where it is now if it weren’t for the working relationships between school staff, youth and public health, with the support from RNAO.
“I completely rely on the teachers, guidance counsellors and other mental health professionals in the school,” she says. “They…understand the school politics and dynamics. They know what will work in their schools and have a good understanding of what is needed.” As a result, there has been an increase in collaboration amongst youth and adult allies, increased mental health literacy for champions, and a reduction in stigma around mental health issues and mental illness. It is one of the reasons she says the program is so important. “This program really does keep the students’ needs in the forefront.”
Youth are currently addressing a number of issues, including a reliance on technology and social media, leading to an increase in dependence that affects their mental health. They are exposed to digital content that influences body image and can lead to addictions such as online gambling and excessive use of porn, Starr suggests. RNAO’s program allows youth and parents to better understand adolescents, and why they gravitate towards technology for social connections and new trends. “I think…this may help (them) understand what is normal, why youth do the things that they do, how to improve their technology use, and how to look for other ways to engage socially and with better-managed risk.”
At the March conference, Venables, McCracken and Starr were just some of the speakers who shared their experiences and highlighted the impact of the program. Other nurses, youth champions and health-care professionals who are part of the program talked about how it’s made a difference in their lives and schools. Some shared details of the strong relationships they’ve built with youth and peers, and how this helps everyone feel included.
“The program has grown and expanded so much over the last 10 years by embracing evidence-based approaches, fostering strong youth leadership and improving adult and youth collaboration,” says Sabrina Merali, program manager for RNAO’s Mental Health & Substance Use Program. “We look forward to continuing to support youth to gain the skills they need to be mental health leaders in their schools and communities.”
With the success of the program, it was only a matter of time before it expanded beyond the school setting.
Andrea Stellmach, a public health nurse on the Mental Health, Addictions and Substance Use Health Unit at Ottawa Public Health, says this model was adapted to help address the mental health needs of youth in diverse communities. Through surveys and discussion groups, she determined that youth accessing community health in Ottawa want representation and an accessible place they can visit to get support. Stellmach launched an adapted program with different youth groups in 2023.
The health unit created drop-in groups for African, Caribbean and Black youth, for newcomers to the country, and for Southeast Asian youth. Similar to the structure in schools, adult allies were enlisted to support youth leaders with training on mental health and substance use so they can take those skills back to their respective communities.
Participants in the training “…looked at what their community needed, what they were most interested in, how they needed to adapt it to work for their community and then went out to the community and shared the information with their peers,” says Stellmach. Different groups hosted different types of events and activities to promote mental health. One group had speakers from their community share stories, another organized a coping and stress management workshop, and another group focused specifically on resilience. Stellmach says that one group had youth leaders partner with their parents to help improve the experience. “They were much more comfortable with (their parents) being there,” she says.
Although Stellmach’s approach is slightly different than the school model, the impact has been the same. She has seen firsthand how well-received the program is for different communities. “We’re working with them in a way that works for them to…decrease stigma, increase awareness of mental health and substance use…and build resilience.”
As an RN, Venables helps people with complex acquired brain injuries get the help they need. And he says he still applies the skills he learned as a youth champion. “I have a conversation with them, and I ask: ‘What can I do to help you live your life?’ That’s been very impactful for myself and my patients,” he says. Venables is open about attending therapy and advocating for its importance for good mental health. He says he would love to see RNAO’S program expand into universities. Mental health doesn’t have a cut-off age, he points out.
“Everybody has their struggles…nobody has perfect mental wellness 100 per cent of the time and…I feel like (mental health) is something that everyone can continue to work on throughout their lifetime.”
Find out more online at Youth Wellness Champions | RNAO.ca
