The focus of Health Promotion Services is to provide awareness, education and health promotion activities. While we do not provide intervention and treatment services directly, we can help to connect you with a variety of CF and civilian services that can be of assistance.
Our goal is to deliver programs and services that empower CF regular and reserve force members, their families, and the DND/CF Defence team to take control of their health and well-being so that they can fulfill the CF operational mandate while enjoying the highest practical standards of health and quality of life.
While priority is given to CF members (regular and reserve force), CF family members and DND/NPF civilian employees are welcome to participate where space and resources permit.
All programs, services and related materials are free of charge.
For more information about Health Promotion Services, please see the links below:
"What is Health Promotion?"
Strengthening the Forces uses the World Health Organization (WHO) definitions of health and health promotion:
Health
A state of physical, mental, spiritual and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Health is a positive resource for meeting the challenges of daily living (not the objective of living). Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities. - World Health Organization
Health Promotion
The process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve their health. To reach a state of complete physical, mental, spiritual and social well-being, an individual or a group must be able to identify and realize aspirations, to satisfy needs, and to change or cope with the environment. - Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, World Health Organization
In carrying out our Health Promotion programs, we recognize that…
Health is a valuable resource. Not only does it allow us to enjoy our lives, it makes it possible to achieve our personal and professional goals. This is especially important for members of the Canadian Forces who must be ready to respond to a call to duty at any time.
Health promotion is not about imposing actions or behaviours on others. Rather, it is about creating the conditions that make it as easy as possible for people to make the choices that will help them to take control over and improve their health.
Health is not just about individuals, but about populations and the social, environmental and economic factors that affect them. As we design health promotion programs, we look for information about the environment of CF members: where they live, where they work, what resources are available to them, and what resources are out of reach.
"What is Strengthening the Forces?"
Strengthening the Forces is an initiative of Force Health Protection (FHP). Health promotion programs are researched, developed and evaluated by a team of subject matter experts at Force Health Protection. The programs are delivered by staff hired under the terms of a Service Level Arrangement with the Canadian Forces Personnel Support Agency (CFPSA) and located at bases and wings across Canada and in Germany. These Health Promotion Directors and Managers have a mandate to deliver the national health promotion programs and to identify and relay to the program development team the specific needs and issues at their respective bases and wings.