Healthy Living

Unit Plan

In this 6-lesson unit, students will learn to recognize signs of mental health struggle and how to be there for others.

resilience

Unit Plan

The Navigating Change unit is designed to help students understand that change is a natural part of life and that resilience can be developed over time. Grounded in a strengths-based, trauma-informed approach, the unit helps students recognize their existing strengths, identify protective factors that support mental well-being, and build practical strategies for navigating change and future challenges.

Healthy Living

Lesson

Students will learn to recognize their limits and how to take care of their own mental health.

Healthy Living

Lesson

Students will learn the difference between a mental health struggle and crisis, how to start a conversation with someone who is struggling with their mental health, and what to do if someone is in crisis.

Healthy Living

Lesson

Students will learn how to build trust and find practical ways to help someone through their day to day life.

Healthy Living

Lesson

Students will learn what it means to be a good listener and how to balance the conversation.

Healthy Living

Lesson

Students will learn what their role is - and is not - when supporting someone and how to set boundaries to protect their relationships and their own mental health.

Healthy Living

Lesson

In this lesson, your students will learn to access professional and community resources and what to expect from them.

Mental Health

Lesson

As part of the Jack Talks program, this On Demand Talk uses peer-to-peer learning to teach young people across Canada that we all have mental health and we all need to care for it. Jack Talks aim to reduce barriers to help-seeking through the goals of all Jack.org programs: increasing mental health awareness, knowledge, and literacy; reducing negative attitudes like shame, stigma, and silence; and advocating for more appropriate and accessible services. 

Mental Health

Lesson

As a follow-up to Jack Talk On Demand: Mental Health Essentials, students have the opportunity to revisit some of the key ideas shared by the speakers. Students can consolidate their learning through discussion, reflection, and application of knowledge.

Indigenous

Lesson

This lesson explores Indigenous perspectives on wellness, highlighting diverse supports—nature, laughter, relationships, creativity, animals, and personal reflection.

resilience

Lesson

Building on the previous lesson, students deepen their understanding of resilience by exploring how protective factors help people adapt to change and navigate challenges. Through realistic scenarios, discussion, and reflection, students apply their learning to identify supportive relationships, personal strengths, healthy coping strategies, and community resources that help build resilience over time.

resilience

Lesson

This lesson builds on students' understanding of resilience and the protective factors that support mental well-being, introduced in the previous lesson, by exploring these concepts in greater depth. Through collaboration and reflection, students create a shared resilience toolkit that highlights practical strategies, coping skills, supportive relationships, and encouraging reminders they can draw on when navigating change and challenges.

resilience

Lesson

Our Jack Talk on Navigating Change is delivered by trained youth speakers who share their own story and experiences with change. Students explore the many transitions we face in life, including academic transitions and identity development, and how these can affect our mental, emotional, and physical well-being. They’ll also practice self-awareness, explore uncertainty and thinking traps, and build skills to navigate change with greater intention, grow through change, and build resilience.

resilience

Lesson

This lesson consolidates students' learning from the Navigating Change series and accompanying Jack Talk. Students review key concepts, make connections between change, resilience, and protective factors, and begin a summative resilience plan that demonstrates their understanding of how these concepts can support well-being and future growth.

resilience

Lesson

This lesson explores how change is a natural and ongoing part of life and how it can impact our emotions, identity, routines, and well-being. Students will learn about the cycle of change, stress, coping, adaptation, and resilience, while reflecting on their own experiences and strategies for navigating change.

Jack Intersections

Lesson

This video-based lesson helps students explore empathy, inclusion, and community connection to support youth well-being after emergencies and disruptive events. Students learn to recognize the emotional impact of crises, understand ways to foster safe and inclusive spaces, practice supportive communication, and develop skills to help peers and communities recover while maintaining their own well-being.

Jack Intersections

Lesson

This video-based lesson helps students explore how digital platforms can both support connection and increase stress, especially during emergencies. Students learn to notice the emotional impact of online content, identify signs of stress from digital use, set healthy boundaries with social media and news, and develop strategies to protect their well-being while staying connected to peers and trusted supports.

Jack Intersections

Lesson

This video-based lesson helps students explore how rising living costs and financial uncertainty can affect emotions, relationships, and sense of future. Students learn to recognize stress and worry related to financial pressures, understand common emotional and social reactions, and develop strategies to cope, reduce stigma around financial challenges, and connect with trusted supports.

Jack Intersections

Lesson

This video-based lesson helps students explore how news and world events can affect emotions, relationships, and daily routines. Students learn to recognize signs of stress, set boundaries with news and social media, navigate difficult conversations respectfully, connect with trusted supports, and use practical strategies to cope with overwhelm.

Jack Intersections

Lesson

In this video-based lesson, speakers discuss how climate emergencies, such as wildfires, can affect Indigenous mental health and community connection. They explore the emotional impact of displacement, why Indigenous communities are often disproportionately affected, and practical ways young people can support themselves and others.

Jack Intersections

Lesson

This video-based lesson helps students explore how grief, loss, and eco-anxiety can affect emotions, relationships, and daily routines, especially in the context of emergencies and climate change. Students learn to recognize common emotional responses, validate their own and others’ feelings, and develop strategies to cope, maintain optimism, and foster collective care in classrooms and youth programs.

Digital

Activity

Students will reflect on their digital interactions and their effects, whether through social media, games, apps, or other online platforms.

Digital

Activity

In this activity, students reflect on how different online spaces, people, and content affect their mood and mindset, recognizing which support their well-being and which tend to drain or distract them. They then decide what to keep, limit, or let go of.

Digital

Activity

In this activity, students examine when their screen use feels automatic or unhelpful, then create small, realistic strategies to pause or replace those habits in support of their well-being.

Active Listening

Activity

This activity focuses on the importance of active listening, especially when someone shares a mental health struggle.

Supporting Others

Activity

In this activity, students explore what stops people from asking for help with their mental health and introduces the importance of offering support and connecting to help.

Self-care

Activity

In this activity, students discuss the concept of self-care and explore coping strategies they can implement in their lives.

Teacher Guides

Guides

Talking about mental health can sometimes be difficult for young people — especially those who are struggling or have experienced a difficult situation. In accordance with multiple academic and school boards’ best practices, we have taken measures to ensure that our messages are well evaluated, safe, and as non-triggering as possible.

Teacher Guides

Guides

Teaching mental health is no small feat. Brush up on your mental health fundamentals with our Mental Health 101 Guide, designed to make sure you have the information you need to answer student questions with confidence.

Teacher Guides

Guides

The words we choose are important. Build a healthier conversation with our notes on choosing language that supports the mental health of your students.

Teacher Guides

Guides

Trauma is “both the experience of, and a response to, an overwhelmingly negative event or series of events, such as interpersonal violence, personal loss, war or natural disaster. In the context of violence, trauma can be acute (resulting from a single event) or complex (resulting from repeated experiences of interpersonal and/or systemic violence)”.