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March 7, 2025

By Chantal Sinclair, MSc. Positive Psychology
2021 Positive Psychology certificate graduate

Someone once told me that I was going to end up working in a career focused on supporting mental health one day, and I said “no way!”. To me, mental health work meant heaviness and working through struggles. However, Positive Psychology was a missing puzzle piece for me. After spending nearly a decade working as a wellness professional in various organizations including private organizations and healthcare, I was confident in working with the physical aspect of wellness through my background in Kinesiology and Nutrition, but I wanted to learn more and do more for employee well-being.

When the pandemic hit in 2020 while I was working at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, my heart ached for the staff. They were working tirelessly, scared, with no respite in sight. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to help. I knew I had to shift gears from my approach to wellness in order to help them feel better -even if it meant only moving the needle ever so slightly- but I didn’t know how exactly to do it effectively. This is when I sought out and found the Positive Psychology Certificate through ³Ô¹ÏÍø.

Positive Psychology is unlike typical psychology where the idea isn’t “how do I feel okay” but, “how come those people thriving despite challenges and what can we do to be like them”? People deserve just that – to thrive, to feel their best and not just feel the status quo. Taking this course helped me to discover the ‘how’s’ and ‘whys’ to happiness that so many people desire to achieve. Beyond this, I learned many tools to help people build upon resiliency, something that was in dire need during my time taking the course during the pandemic.

I loved the experiential approach this program took where I was encouraged to try activities, had the opportunity to build a program and reflect on my learnings each week. From here, I was able to learn new tools and strategies that I could use to help make the difference in healthcare staff’s lives. The wellness programming I started to bring into the hospital focused on new approaches to wellness including self-compassion, gratitude, mindfulness, utilizing strengths and boosting happiness. In a career that is sometimes seen as “fluffy” I loved how these strategies, tools and recommendations were backed by science. 

If you’re looking for a fulfilling certificate to really help you shape your future and the ones you work with, I highly recommend you take this course. This certificate truly was the missing puzzle piece for me, that sparked a passion and now, because of what I learned, I have very recently completed my masters in Positive Psychology. I am so glad I took the chance on this course as it really has shaped my career and my life! I cannot wait to see where this will take me.