Partner Linkage Tool for the Operating Grant: Evaluation and Implementation Science for Youth Mental Health
Overview
The Operating Grant: Evaluation and Implementation Science for Youth Mental Health will generate high-quality, actionable evidence to enhance equitable access to quality mental health interventions, services and systems, strengthen their implementation and scalability, and ultimately improve mental health outcomes for youth across Canada. This funding opportunity supports the evaluation and/or implementation science research on youth mental health interventions (i.e., interventions, programs and practices that aim to prevent and/or reduce the symptoms of mental health, substance use and/or neurodevelopmental conditions, including clinic-, school- or community-based, psychological and pharmacological interventions).
This Partner Linkage tool is intended to facilitate connections between a) organizations implementing youth mental health interventions with b) evaluation and implementation science research teams.
The Partner Linkage Tool includes information about research team members and organizations interested in partnering for this funding opportunity and their priorities of interest. This is not a mandatory tool. Information is provided on a volunteer basis and does not confer any advantages in the evaluation and funding of applications.
Are you a research team member or an organization looking for a partner to collaborate with on the Evaluation and Implementation Science Operating Grants? Fill out our Partner Linkage Tool online form. Your entered data and profile will be posted and be publicly available soon. The partner linkage tool will be updated weekly until the application deadline. Please share this tool with anyone you think may be interested in participating in this funding opportunity.
By completing and submitting this form, you are consenting to having your responses posted publicly online in the language of submission (English or French) and that researchers or organizations can potentially contact you to explore interest to partner. You may request to have your information edited or removed at any time by sending a request to support-soutien@cihr-irsc.gc.ca.
Notice
The information is provided in the language in which it was submitted by the respondent.
| Contact information | Participant type | Areas of interest | For organizations: Intervention title | For organizations: Intervention description | For organizations: Status or stage of intervention | Funding pool(s) of interest | Additional information |
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| Safiétou T. Sakala Directrice santé mentale à l'Association pour la santé publique du Québec ssakala@aspq.org Quebec 514 598-8058 poste 262 ASPQ / Ça Se Cultive / Ralentir |
Member of organization implementing youth mental health intervention(s) | Promotion, prévention, compétences personnelles et sociales, déterminants de la santé mentale | La santé mentale positive ça se cultive | Des outils pour favoriser le développement des compétences personnelles et sociales des jeunes, et la création d’environnements favorables à leur santé mentale. | Implementation | Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions supported by the Youth Mental Health Fund pool (YMHF-supported intervention pool) Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions (General pool) |
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| Rand Hussein Pharmacist r.saffarinee9@gmail.com 647-923-3255 ON |
Researcher or research team member | Alcohol use disorder | Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions (General pool) | ||||
| Carla Liria Sánchez-Lafuente Post-doctoral Researcher at Western University & Coordinator of the Canadian Fermented Foods Initiative at Lawson Research Insitute cliriasa@uwo.ca 2369918040 ON |
Researcher or research team member | To investigate the potential of fermented foods as dietary interventions for improving mental health outcomes. | Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions (General pool)
Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions supported by the Youth Mental Health Fund pool (YMHF-supported intervention pool) |
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JianLi Wang Professor/Dalhousie University jianli.wang@dal.ca NS |
Researcher or research team member I have an effective prevention program for depression, and is looking for organizations who are interested in implementing it. |
I am a psychiatric epidemiologist and has developed a coach-guided personalized depression risk communication program for preventing depression in the general population. The safety and efficacy of the program have been supported by CIHR funded randomized controlled trials. Seeking organizations and colleagues who are interested in implementing and evaluating the program from the implementation science perspective. I am also interested in collaborating on others' projects to contribute my expertise in epidemiology, RCT and evaluation. | Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions supported by the Youth Mental Health Fund pool (YMHF-supported intervention pool) Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions (General pool) |
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Nelofar Kureshi Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University nelofar.kureshi@dal.ca NS |
Researcher or research team member | My research interests are at the intersection of public health informatics, and applied artificial intelligence , spanning both uninjured and injured populations. I study how data-driven methods can characterize health and healthcare across sociodemographic and socioeconomic gradients. I am interested in the evaluation of youth mental health interventions with a particular interest in equity, i.e., whether interventions deliver comparable access, quality, and mental health outcomes across intersecting groups, including youth marginalized by socioeconomic status, sex, race, disability, geography, or migration status. Digital health interventions and AI-enabled tools are of special interest to me, where algorithmic fairness auditing can test whether these tools perform equitably rather than reproducing existing disparities. | Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions (General pool) Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health Indigenous-led interventions pool (Indigenous-led pool) Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions supported by the Youth Mental Health Fund pool (YMHF-supported intervention pool) |
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| Simon Benoit Program Evaluator and Research Coordinator simobenoit@theroyal.ca 6137226521 x.6657 ON |
Member of organization implementing youth mental health intervention(s) | Vocational training Services tailored to youth from Children's Aid Services Animal-assisted therapy Novel applications of technology to remove barriers to service access | TBD | We are looking to collaborate on the implementation/evaluation of new or existing interventions within our program. Animal-assisted therapy is ongoing for example and others such as (pre-)vocational training and seeking safety are under development. | Mixed | Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions (General pool) | |
| Dr. Heather M Boynton Associate Professor University of Calgary hmboynto@ucalgary.ca 7804922520 AB |
Researcher or research team member | A holistic mental health and coping group program for youth and families called the HEALTHY Group, based on a mind, body, spirit approach that includes evidence based cognitive behavioural and mindfulness strategies, body based regulation including trauma informed yoga, and strengthening one's spiritual strengths and resources. It is an 8 week 2 hr per week program that has shown very good program evaluation results on anxiety and depression scores (moving from clinical to normal however, no formal clinicial research has been done yet). It is a cost effective pre treatment or in treatment approach. | Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions (General pool) Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions supported by the Youth Mental Health Fund pool (YMHF-supported intervention pool) Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health Indigenous-led interventions pool (Indigenous-led pool) |
The program offers youth psychoeducation, practice of various coping strategies and an opportunity to create their own unique coping menu to utilize. I previously ran 5 groups with 40 youth who anectodally offered they found it very helpful. Parents were asking to be able to take it themselves seeing their children's benefits. The youth stated it was good to try various things and talk about it with other youth, and they learned a lot about their own mental health, and how to support peers with anxiety and depression. They particularly appreciated learning about and having their spirituality attended to. | |||
| Sean Miles CEO sean.miles@think-fx.com 4038949832 AB |
Company with an intervention that we woudl like to explore research for youth implementation. | Our team has developed a protocol that is widely accessible and is currently being validated through the University of Victoria. It includes a stack of focused attention training, alpha peak training, and self-hypnosis in 4-, 6-, and 8-week time periods. Our research has so far been adults only and has used neurofeedback but we would like to also apply this to youth. | Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions supported by the Youth Mental Health Fund pool (YMHF-supported intervention pool) Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health Indigenous-led interventions pool (Indigenous-led pool) Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions (General pool) |
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| Xuan Zhao, PhD Co-Founder & CEO, Flourish Science; Research Scientist, Stanford University xuan@myflourish.ai California, USA |
Member of organization implementing youth mental health intervention(s) | Flourish Science is seeking Canadian research and implementation partners to conduct independent evaluation and implementation research on Flourish, an evidence-based, AI-powered mental health intervention for youth and young adults. Flourish has already been evaluated in large-scale randomized controlled trials (RCTs), including a published multi-institutional, longitudinal RCT demonstrating improvements in positive affect, resilience, belonging and social well-being, and reductions in loneliness, as well as a second large-scale randomized trial examining depression and anxiety outcomes. We are interested in building on this efficacy evidence to study real-world effectiveness, implementation, and scale in Canadian settings. Areas of particular interest include: (1) mental health and well-being outcomes; (2) equitable reach, engagement, and sustained behavior change across diverse youth populations; (3) implementation, adoption, and scalability across postsecondary and other youth-serving settings; (4) access to care, help-seeking, service navigation, and organizational capacity; and (5) measurement-informed stepped care and AI-to-human warm handoffs, including how AI can recognize evolving needs, complement existing services, and facilitate timely connection to appropriate human support. Research and evidence | Flourish: Evidence-Based AI-Powered Mental Health Intervention for Youth and Young Adults | Flourish is an evidence-based, safety-first, AI-powered digital mental health intervention for prevention and early intervention among youth and young adults, developed by Stanford-trained psychologists. Its AI companion, Sunnie, provides personalized, just-in-time support grounded in psychological and behavioral science to strengthen emotion regulation, resilience, stress and anxiety management, healthy behavior change, and help-seeking. Flourish combines conversational AI with evidence-based activities, longitudinal assessment and progress monitoring, proactive support, and institution-specific resource navigation and AI-to-human warm handoffs to complement existing mental health services and facilitate timely connection to appropriate human support. | Flourish has been evaluated in two large-scale randomized controlled trials (RCTs; >1,600 participants), including a multi-institutional longitudinal RCT published in New England Journal of Medicine AI and a second large-scale RCT evaluating depression and anxiety outcomes. The next stage is independent real-world effectiveness, implementation, adaptation, and scalability research across diverse Canadian youth and postsecondary settings. | Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions supported by the Youth Mental Health Fund pool (YMHF-supported intervention pool) Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions (General pool) |
Flourish is a research-ready, AI-native mental health intervention designed for prevention and early intervention. Its AI companion, Sunnie, provides personalized, just-in-time support grounded in psychological and behavioral science, including emotion regulation, stress and anxiety management, resilience, behavior change, and help-seeking. The platform also supports longitudinal measurement and institution-specific resource navigation to connect users with appropriate human support. Flourish has an established research and implementation infrastructure and has been evaluated in two large-scale randomized controlled trials involving more than 1,600 participants. A multi-institutional, preregistered longitudinal RCT (N=486) is published in New England Journal of Medicine AI and found significant benefits for positive affect, resilience, belonging, community connectedness, and loneliness. A second large-scale randomized trial (N=1,137) evaluated Flourish as an early intervention for depression and anxiety. We are seeking Canadian academic researchers with expertise in youth mental health, digital mental health, implementation science, health services research, pragmatic trials, and/or health economics, as well as Canadian postsecondary institutions and youth-serving organizations interested in serving as implementation partners. Flourish can contribute the established intervention, technical and implementation support, existing research evidence, and research infrastructure. We welcome rigorous independent evaluation, including multi-site studies across diverse Canadian settings and populations. Published RCT – New England Journal of Medicine AI: DOI 10.1056/AIoa2501293 Second RCT – AI-Powered Early Intervention for Depression and Anxiety: DOI 10.31234/osf.io/nwz9q_v5 Research overview and additional publications |
| Rima Habib Head of Partnerships Québec, Implementation consultant and Trainer · Triple P Canada rima.habib@triplep.net Canada |
Evidence-based Parenting Program purveyor, Implementation support organization and Community partner | Triple P Canada is interested in collaborating with research teams to study the implementation, reach, effectiveness, and sustainability of evidence-based parenting and family support interventions that promote child and youth mental health. Specific interests include scale-up across community, health, education, and social service settings; equitable access for diverse and underserved families; workforce training and implementation support; digital or hybrid delivery models; and outcomes related to caregiver confidence, family functioning, youth well-being, and service integration. | Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions supported by the Youth Mental Health Fund pool (YMHF-supported intervention pool) Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions supported by the Youth Mental Health Fund pool (YMHF-supported intervention pool) |
Current and planned priorities include implementing programs for families with adolescents within child protection and child and family welfare services. One example is Building Bridges Triple P, which supports families of youth with disabilities or special needs through developmental support services. Additional priorities include the new short self-guided online program Triple P Teen and Screens, which help parents strengthen their children’s digital literacy, encourage healthy online habits, and address challenges related to screen use. | |||
| Basmah Alkatranji (en anglais seulement Clinical Director admin@smile4therapy.com 6137108181 ON |
Member of organization implementing youth mental health intervention(s) | We are interested in evaluating accessible, community-based mental health interventions for autistic and neurodivergent youth aged 12 to 25, particularly youth experiencing anxiety, emotional dysregulation, communication challenges, behavioural distress, or barriers to accessing conventional mental health services. Priority areas include integrated psychotherapy and behavioural support, caregiver coaching, culturally responsive care, and coordination across mental health, autism, education, and community services. We are also interested in implementation outcomes, including intervention feasibility, acceptability, fidelity, equitable access, staff training, sustainability, and successful adaptation across home, clinic, virtual, and community settings. | Smile4Therapy Integrated Mental Health and Behavioural Support for Autistic and Neurodivergent Youth | A community-based, neurodiversity-informed model designed to support autistic and neurodivergent youth aged 12 to 25 who experience anxiety, emotional dysregulation, functional communication difficulties, behavioural distress, or barriers to accessing conventional mental-health services. The model integrates individualized counselling, positive behavioural support, emotional-regulation and coping-skills training, caregiver coaching, and coordination with families and other service providers. Services may be delivered in clinic, home, community, or virtual settings according to the youth’s needs. The proposed research would evaluate implementation, accessibility, acceptability, fidelity, sustainability, and youth and family outcomes. | The model is currently being delivered in routine community practice through Smile4Therapy’s multidisciplinary services. Its clinical components are established, but it is at an early evaluation and research-readiness stage. A research partnership is sought to clearly define the intervention’s core components, develop fidelity measures, select validated outcome measures, and conduct a rigorous implementation and effectiveness evaluation. | Evaluation and/or implementation science for youth mental health interventions (General pool) | Smile4Therapy is seeking an eligible Canadian research team with expertise in youth mental health, autism and neurodevelopmental disabilities, evaluation or implementation science, mixed-methods research, and health equity. The organization can contribute a real-world community service setting in Ontario, clinical personnel, access to potentially eligible youth and families, workflow integration, youth and caregiver engagement, practice-based data, and knowledge-user leadership. We are particularly interested in partnering with an independent researcher who can lead the scientific design, ethics process, outcome-measure selection, data analysis, and CIHR application. The proposed partnership would initially clarify the intervention’s core components and research readiness, followed by a rigorous pilot, feasibility, or effectiveness evaluation. |
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