Best Practice Guidelines for Mental Health Promotion Programs: Older Adults 55+

This web publication from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (2009) is posted on the new CAMH KnowledgeX professional portal, aimed directly at professionals working in the mental health and addictions field. The guidelines are the second in a series of guides to promoting positive mental health across the lifespan.

It provides health and social service providers (“practitioners”) with current evidence-based approaches in the application of mental health promotion concepts and principles for older adults and is intended to support practitioners, caregivers and others involved in developing programs in incorporating best practice approaches to mental health promotion initiatives that are directed towards older people (55 years of age and over).

Best practice guidelines for mental health promotion programs: Older adults 55+ includes:

• 11 best practice guidelines for mental health promotion interventions with older people.
• Description of how older adults are defined in this resource.
• Examples of mental health programs that incorporate good practice.
• Examples of indicators for measuring program success.
• Theory: Provides practitioners with the context for mental health promotion through definitions and underlying concepts, with a focus on promoting resilience.
• Resources: Provides a worksheet (MS Word format) that can be used by practitioners to plan and implement mental health promotion initiatives, a sample worksheet (PDF) showing how it has been used in a mental health promotion initiative, a list of web resources and a glossary of words commonly used in mental health promotion.
• References and acknowledgements