Community Health & Wellbeing Month 2026

#CHWM2026 - #PoweringConnections

Please submit your planned events to celebrate CHWM 2026 to khalid.elmouloudi@allianceon.org.

We will share them here and on social media.

Click here to access the Dropbox folder containing all the necessary resources.

#Scheduled events:

#Download the Guide document Here:

This Guide document offers everything you'll need for collective communications and advocacy throughout the month of October. The document contains key messages and messaging templates for social media (that can be paired with the social media graphics provided in the Dropbox folder), as well as suggested activities like hosting events, inviting leaders, and preparing for media outreach. 

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#Get All the Resources Here:

All the resources you'll need can be viewed and downloaded from this Dropbox folder, including social media assets, graphic assets, as well as template documents like the media advisory and the invitation letters.

#Community Health and Wellbeing Month 2026 At a Glance

A MONTH OF OPPORTUNITIES TO SHARE YOUR WORK

Since expanding Community Health and Wellbeing Week to the entire month of October, Alliance members have used the new format to schedule more events, celebrations and touch points, and to share our vital collective messages across the province. October is your season to celebrate your local successes and the collective work at your organizations towards improved health and wellbeing in your communities across Ontario. With primary health care expansion continuing and a municipal election on the horizon, our messages centred on health equity and addressing barriers for marginalized people are more important than ever.

WHAT IS IT?

Community Health and Wellbeing Month (CHWM) is an annual autumn initiative for community health sector collective communications and advocacy, propelled by the events, tours, actions, celebrations, gatherings, storytelling, and social media updates of Alliance member organizations, their boards, staff, volunteers, and community champions. CHWM is coordinated by the Communications and Stakeholder Relations team at the Alliance for Healthier Communities, who will provide support and materials for members’ activities, storytelling, communications and events. Before and during CHWM, Alliance members plan and execute a diverse array of touch points and activities, to draw focus to health equity work and its impacts, barriers being addressed, collaboration for better health and wellbeing, and Alliance members’ successes, big and small. CHWM is also a chance to amplify the efforts of Alliance members and their community health collaborators in the pursuit of equitable health and wellbeing for everyone living in Ontario. This is your month to shine together, talk about what you do, and why it matters in your communities (and beyond)!

WHEN IS IT?

ALL of October 2026

WHAT’S OUR THEME?

The central theme for CHWM 2026 is “Furthering Health Equity, Powering Connections.” Like last year’s theme “Standing Together,” this theme is designed to be modular and adaptable to your local priorities, so every organization can connect their unique work to the broader campaign.

“Furthering Health Equity” anchors everyone in the shared commitment that drives Alliance members’ work across Ontario. “Powering Connections” is yours to personalize. You might focus on powering connections to community and belonging, to people, to health, or to any of the social determinants of health, such as food, clean water, safe spaces, or housing. Make it your own. Align it with the work you are already doing and the communities you serve.

Here are some suggested examples to help you integrate the theme into your event communications and advocacy (by mid-September, you’ll find ready-to-use social media graphics with these variations in the resources Dropbox folder):

• Furthering Health Equity for [equity-denied group]: Be specific about the communities you serve. for example, “Furthering Health Equity for Francophone Health” or “Furthering Health Equity for Indigenous Health.” Most of these variations are already included in the Dropbox folder.
• Powering Connections to Community: Highlight the people, partners and collaborators who make your work possible. You can also use this as “Powering Connections With our Partners,” or Volunteers, Caregivers, Community Voices, etc.
• Powering Connections to Health: Showcase your interprofessional team and comprehensive, integrated care. CHWM celebrates the full team: doctors, nurse practitioners, social workers, dietitians, admin staff and more. All powering connections to better health.
• Powering Connections to [a social determinant of health]: Focus on the determinant most relevant to your community; food security, clean water, housing, safe spaces, income supports, or climate resilience.

Feel free to mix and match and make the theme your own!

#The Key Messages :

This year, we are centring our collective voice around four key messages. As in past years, these messages are designed to be elastic and flexible enough for all members to use with all audiences throughout CHWM 2026. Consult the CHWM  Guide document for more info on the key messages with example template messaging.

1. Primary Health Care is the foundation of the health system
2. Expansion of Primary Health Care and what attachment for everyone really means
3. Overlapping Crises undermine the social determinants of health 
4. Importance of Local Engagement

#The Graphic Elements:

We have prepared all the graphic elements you’ll need to support your communications during the CHWM, ready to be used as is or customized. You can find them in the Dropbox folder containing the CHWM resources, under the folders:

• Logos: This folder contains the logo of CHWM as well as the graphic accompanying the theme.
• Social media (upcoming by mid-September): These are the social media graphics that you can use along with the key messages and templates.

Each folder contains graphics in English and French. The filenames also contain keywords, so you can search for specific graphics that mention certain words like “Indigenous” or “Harm Reduction”.

#Goals of CHWM 2026

• Advance and promote your work to decision-makers and community members.

• Showcase members role as foundation of comprehensive primary health care.

• Highlight the better outcomes rooted in members work with community.

• Widely share made-in-the-sector innovations and solutions for health equity.

• Reinforce the importance of taking an upstream, health equity-based approach to preventative, population-tailored primary health care 

• Celebrate members roles/work at increasing access to primary health care and making the Ontario government vision of 100% attachment a success, shine a light on what’s needed to get to the next level, in terms of funding to transform Ontario into a team-based primary health care jurisdiction, where everyone has access to a team.

• Demonstrate that a comprehensive approach to primary health care is one that takes into account both the social determinants of health and health inequities, and that includes a full continuum of care, including mental health, harm reduction and culturally safe-tailored care.

• Highlight both the Health Equity Charter and the Model of Health and Wellbeing and the Model of Wholistic Health and Wellbeing as foundational tools available to help guide primary health care transformation towards a more accessible and sustainable system with better outcomes for all.

• NEW: Use the 2026 municipal election as an opportunity to build local champions for community health who will carry these issues into their new term of office.

#Other Suggested Activities: 

• Send an official request for a Municipal Proclamation naming October officially as “Community Health and Wellbeing Month” in your community, using the provided template here.
• Post CHWM posters around your centre to let people know what’s ahead.
• Use the CHWM template email signature and share it across your organization.
• Talk to partner organizations, providers, volunteers, boards and others about sharing our message together. Give them electronic materials if they are looking to participate formally
• Include save the date messages and pre-event teasers using the logo, event and date of CHWM in your newsletters and on social media.