Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

In 2021, over 40% of immigrants to Canada were from Asia. Newcomer youth face many challenges that compromise their mental health, including sense of unbelonging, racism, language and cultural barriers in accessing health resources, settlement demands, and economic hardship. Asian LGBTQ+ newcomer youth face additional challenges of social exclusion, bullying, homophobia and transphobia. Digital mental health interventions are increasingly considered as effective and more accessible responses to addressing mental health problems. During the pandemic, the Canadian mental health system expedited digital mental health services. Evidence shows that youth regularly seek online mental health support; however, racialized newcomers encounter financial, cultural and language barriers in accessing digital mental health resources. This initiative aims to bring together mental health practitioners, decision-makers, Asian newcomer youth leaders and community stakeholders to dialogue and prioritize strategies that ensure access to effective and culturally safe digital mental health care among East, Southeast and South Asian newcomer youth in Ontario. It consists of two components: (1) scoping reviews on access to and elements of effective digital interventions for Asian youth in Canada and elsewhere; (2) community dialogues on digital mental health resources for diverse Asian newcomer youth, which includes (i) sharing results of the scoping reviews; (ii) engage stakeholders to determine the need of effective digital mental health interventions for youth in their communities; (iii) co-identify the essential elements of an inclusive, effective and innovative digital intervention on mental health promotion for Asian newcomer youth; (iv) establish a partnership with an action plan to engage youth leaders and relevant stakeholders to secure a research grant to co-develop and pilot an innovative, accessible, inclusive and effective digital intervention on youth mental health promotion.