Web-based and Apps
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)
CAMH’s Mental Health 101 is a free resource that emphasizes the importance of knowledge and understanding about different mental health issues. It is a great starting point for learning about mental health. The site also offers an opportunity to create a private user account so that you can get the most out of your online learning experience.
Free Mental Health Resources for Newcomers
CAMH has developed The Multilingual Resources section to provide free multi-language information on mental illness to people for whom English is not a first language and professionals who work with clients from culturally and linguistically diverse background.
This free app is designed to help address key barriers to illness self-management and treatment engagement using an evidence-informed and empathy-based adaptive digital health intervention. This app focuses on supporting people with complex behavioural and mental health conditions. Currently, A4i is being used to target the recovery processes in psychosis and schizophrenia, and newly in opioid use disorders.
Saying When: How to Quit Drinking or Cut Down
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Canada’s largest mental health teaching hospital, created Saying When app to help users take control of their drinking habits. The free step-by-step program includes self-assessments, additional resources, personalized goals, and a dashboard to organize it all. CAMH stresses that this tool is not meant for those with a serious drinking problem (but they do provide resources for those that do).
MindShift CBT - Anxiety Release
MindShift CBT is a free app that uses scientifically proven strategies based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to help you learn to relax and be mindful, develop more effective ways of thinking, and use active steps to take charge of your anxiety. A new feature, the Community forum, now enables you to find and offer peer-to-peer support.
BoosterBuddy is a free app that helps teens and young adults improve their mental health through gamification of daily tasks. Based on different intervention strategies such as cognitive behavioral therapy, meditation, and mindfulness, the program uses a series of games and quests to teach coping skills, follow self-care routines, increase real-life socialization, and establish positive habits.
Even though this free app is targeted to students, anybody can use it. Healthy Minds is a tool made to help deal with emotions and the stresses of everyday life. It was developed by The Royal, one of Canada’s top mental health care and academic science centres. With this app, you can take advantage of a mood tracker, breathing exercises, stress relief activities, a journal, and more.
Developed by the US Veterans’ Affairs, the PTSD Coach was designed for those who have, or may have, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This free app provides you with education about PTSD, information about professional care, a self-assessment for PTSD, opportunities to find support, and tools that can help you manage the stresses of daily life with PTSD.
Insight Timer: Meditate and Sleep
Insight Timer is an app that offers a huge collection of more than 100,000 guided meditations with no required subscription or membership - it’s free. They have many contents centering on sleep, mental health, peak productivity, and spirituality. They even have some for kids.
This completely free mindfulness app is a great instructive resource for anyone looking to learn about and embrace mindfulness as a healthy coping strategy and lifelong skill. Follow guided audio meditations, set goals, track your progress, and learn more about the history and benefits of this mental practice.