We are committed to helping build healthy communities.
Michael Nolan and Andrew Gentile leading a sleep clinic at the Horizons Program. Upper Canada College, Toronto.
We are supporting and empowering youth.
By nurturing teens' emotional resilience and wisdom, we are helping build the elders of tomorrow today.
Locally, we collaborated for three years with the Toronto, Canada based Horizons Program at Upper Canada College, teaching stress reduction, emotional intelligence and self-regulation skills to youth from priority neighbourhoods during the summer term.
Twice during the regular academic year at Upper Canada College we have taught on these same skills through online classes with grades 8 through 12.
We are collaborating with Inuit non-profit organizations, healing centres, school boards and governmental bodies to develop and teach Inuit-specific holistic mental health approaches to combat the mental health crisis being experienced by Indigenous peoples in Canada.
We are decolonizing mental health
In the spirit of reconciliation, we are in continuous dialogue with our Inuit collaborators, learning from them, and collaborating to develop sustainable and empowering Inuit mental health solutions.
We have been honoured to collaborate with the Municipality of Cambridge Bay and their Youth Enrichment Program, and to develop and share Inuit-specific mental health training programs with the Toronto Inuit Association, the Mamisarvik Healing Centre, and the Nunavik School Board, Kativik Ilisarniliriniq.
A group of teens taking part in the Youth Enrichment Camp in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. (Kate Kyle/CBC)
Andrew Gentile with Susan Aglukark and the Arctic Rose Foundation team receiving a 2020 Arctic Inspiration Prize.
We are supporting Inuit leaders in fulfilling their vision.
Andrew Gentile serves as Holistic Mental Health Specialist for the Arctic Rose Foundation's Messy Book Program. This program trains senior high school students as CALM (Community Artist Liaison and Mentor) Workers leading after school therapeutic arts programs in their home communities in the North.
In February 2020, The ARF was awarded a grant from the Arctic Inspiration Prize to expand on its programming and services.