Creating accessible mental health supports for all
Tina Chan (MSc ’20, BSc ’16) is a social entrepreneur who has applied her education towards improving access to mental health support for all. Tina is the Founder of Panic, Anxiety, and Stress Support (PASS), a social venture that develops mental health resources for families, schools, and workplaces. Tina is a graduate of the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences’ School of Public Health and Health Systems. Tina completed her Bachelor of Science in Health Studies (2016) and her Master of Science in Public Health and Health Systems (2020).
In 2015, Tina pitched her idea of the PASS kit, a first aid kit for mental health, at a Big Ideas Challenge and was granted a spot in GreenHouse, a community for innovators who want to create social and environmental change at St. Paul’s University College. From this point, Tina went on to supply PASS kits to St. Paul’s, industry workplaces, Indigenous youth and students. Over 20,000 PASS kit products have been distributed to date. To meet the demand, Tina’s team hired persons with disabilities through the KW Habilitation program, providing employment opportunities to local community members.
Tina’s master’s research explores how technology can be used to motivate peer-to-peer support for mental health. Tina presented her research at the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in 2018 and presented a case study for a non-thesis project at the same conference in 2020.
During her time at the University of Waterloo, Tina successfully competed in the 3-Minute Thesis competition and contributed to a number of initiatives on campus, including the AHS Career Speed Networking event, where she was a student mentor, representing graduate studies in the School of Public Health and Health Systems.
Tina is admired by her colleagues and mentors for her dedication to scholarship, research and creating meaningful change.
In recognition of her impact on creating accessible mental health supports for all and her innovative research, Tina Chan is the recipient of the 2020 Faculty of Applied Health Sciences Young Alumni Award.