The City of Charlottetown will be submitting an application to the Smart Cities Challenge in the $10 million category with a project focus of using technology to improve youth mental health resiliency in Charlottetown. View the application.
Background:
The Smart Cities Challenge is a Canadian competition offered through Industry Canada that is open to municipalities of all sizes. The Challenge encourages communities to adopt a smart cities approach to improve the lives of their residents through innovation, data and connected technology. There will be four final prizes:
1. One prize of up to $50 million open to all communities, regardless of population;
2. Two prizes of up to $10 million open to all communities with populations under 500,000 people; and
3. One prize up to $5 million open to all communities with population under 30,000 people
The deadline to apply is April 24, 2018. Cities that are selected as finalists in the competition will receive a $250,000 grant to develop their complete proposal which is due in the winter of 2018-2019 with the competition winners being announced in the spring of 2019.
Project Focus: Improving Youth Mental Resiliency in Charlottetown
SMART CITIES CHALLENGE
Challenge Statement: Charlottetown will become a community focused on building mental wellness and resilience among our youth. The project will result in improved mental wellbeing for City youth and provide co-benefits of improved physical wellbeing and reduced levels of substance abuse. The project will focus on preventative measures with the anticipated benefit of reducing treatment and intervention costs.
Potential Smart City activities or projects include;
• Collect information through multiple channels including existing studies and additional outreach activities including social media to understand the potential underlying causes of mental stress in youth.
• Establish enhanced programming for youth involvement in activities that are anticipated to address the underlying causes of mental illness. Programs could range from employment opportunities to recreational activities including physical fitness and social clubs.
• Leverage smart technology and big data to collect and analyze the metrics used to monitor the progress of the enhanced programing initiatives.
• Develop wearables for residents looking to improve their mental health that monitor and support physical activity, nutrition, sleep, opportunities for social inclusion, meditation and other forms of mental health prevention and treatment
• Build mental health resilience for youth and provide access to technologies that support their journey to mental wellness.
• Establish enhanced programming for bringing youth together to discuss how they can contribute to improving the lives of their peers.
• Support youth in their efforts to use technology to create opportunities to improve social networks and opportunities for increasing feelings of inclusion.
Potential indicators of progress measured include:
• Increase in feelings of social inclusion and mental wellness and resilience among participants
• Decrease in negative stigma associated with mental health issues, care and accessing preventative measures
• Increase in programming focused on promoting mental resilience
• Increase in programming focused on providing opportunities to develop social networks and support social inclusion
• Increase in attendance in existing programming focused on promoting mental resilience and social inclusion
• Decrease substance abuse among youth
• Increase in physical health among youth
• Increase in youth discussing the success of their efforts to improve the lives of their peers
• Increase in funding of prevention-focused programming and a decrease in treatment related expenses
• Reduction in suicide rates
• Reduction in visits to the Hillsborough Hospital and rates of emergency mental health interventions
Potential Partners
Canadian Mental Health Association
UPEI School of Sustainable Design Engineering
UPEI Applied Science
Youth Retention Advisory Board
Charlottetown Police Services
Department of Health and Wellness
IT Companies
Health PEI
Studies that Support a Focus on Youth Mental Health in Charlottetown
Children’s Report 2017
Integrated Community Sustainability Plan 2017
Youth Retention Advisory Board Report
How to Get Involved
Feedback and input for the Smart Cities Challenge will be accepted by email at
[email protected] The deadline for feedback to be included in the Smart Cities Challenge Application is Friday, April 13 at 5 p.m. If the City of Charlottetown is chosen to further develop its proposal, the public will have more opportunity to get involved and provide input. Some guiding questions for sending feedback include:
• What would contribute to youth mental resilience in Charlottetown?
• How could information technology be used to address mental health?
• What are some of the barriers for youth to being mentally healthy in Charlottetown?