Using the narrative of HARRY POTTER to teach coping skills and resiliency in elementary schools across Canada and worldwide

DR. MARK SINYOR

A free three-month curriculum based on the third Harry Potter book – embedded with author J.K. Rowling’s experience using cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to overcome depression – teaches coping skills and prevention to students in elementary school. Sinyor and his team have been developing this curriculum based on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban over four years in partnership with educators, students and Google. Tested with an Ontario school board, the curriculum has also been taught in Canada’s largest and most diverse school board: the Toronto District School Board.

Thanks to support from Google Canada and partners, an online version is now being developed, which gives this curriculum the potential to impact middle schoolers Canada-wide. Six countries have already implemented this powerful resource. Sinyor’s proposed research will expand this curriculum into an online format, and the grant will examine its effectiveness by assessing students pre-curriculum and two periods post-curriculum. Sinyor’s research goal is to reduce suicidality, symptoms of depression and anxiety, and improve the well-being of students by teaching them self-awareness and coping skills in their formative years.

Giving remote communities a BOOST by integrating cognitive behavioural therapy with peer support

DR. CHRISTOPHER BOWIE

Be Outspoken and Overcome Stigmatizing Thoughts (BOOST), developed by Bowie and his team, is a group intervention that integrates cognitive behavioural therapy with peer support to improve internalized stigma, self-esteem and the quality of life for young people with psychosis. Co-created and co-facilitated by people with lived experience, the therapy consists of eight sessions delivered online over four weeks to individuals with psychosis living in rural or underserviced communities and will involve three provinces.

Bowie’s proposed research will expand this intervention: adding therapeutic methods that address suicidality, providing materials to the family and friends of the person with psychosis, and doing follow-up assessments over the long term. His goal: examine how this group treatment for self-stigma affects suicidal thoughts and behaviours.

Our winners

Dr. Mark Sinyor is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. He is a psychiatrist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and an Associate Scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute. His clinical focus is on the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders, and he is the founder of PROGRESS (the Program of Research and Education to Stop Suicide) at Sunnybrook. His main research focus is suicide prevention and mental health literacy, and he has developed a curriculum for middle schoolers teaching distress tolerance using the Harry Potter novels. His research has been featured in Time, BusinessWeek, CBC’s the National and Radio One.

Dr. Christopher Bowie is Professor in the departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He is also Head Consulting Psychologist for Heads Up! which is an early psychosis intervention program in Kingston, as well as a Clinician-Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. His research focuses on cognition and functioning outcomes in schizophrenia and mood disorders, with an emphasis on early intervention and development of novel treatments. He has received several awards including the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation’s Early Researcher Award and the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation’s Independent Investigator Award.