Released a ‘Backpack’ that curates community-led strategies for creating social connection

The Making Connections Backpack is a comprehensive guide to creating gender- and culture-relevant community-level approaches to improving mental health and wellbeing. It’s filled with strategies and lessons learned from five years of the Making Connections initiative. The COVID-19 pandemic eroded the “pillars of wellbeing”—factors that our partner communities have identified as foundational for community mental health and wellbeing: belonging / connectedness, safety, trust, dignity, hope / aspiration, and control of destiny / self-determination. Although the Backpack was not specifically developed for the context of the pandemic, its content and the journey of the coalitions that carried out this work in diverse communities throughout the country can inform efforts to address intensified social isolation. This work was supported by Movember. Photo by fortherock / CC BY-SA 2.0.