NOW LIVE!
Are you passionate about fitness and mental health? Join the movement and become a certified Fitness Support Specialist.
Benefits to Certification
Stand out as a certified professional in the growing field of fitness and mental health support. Join a community of dedicated professionals enhancing lives through specialized support and training.
Work in Non-traditional Settings
Gain valuable knowledge to help land positions outside traditional fitness settings
Deepen Your Mastery
Equip yourself with the latest, researched-backed and industry-leading coaching strategies
Hone Your Communication Skills
Life-long coaching and communication skills that can be utilized in almost any scenario
Share Your Talents With New Faces
Create transformative fitness experiences for ALL, including many neglected in commercial spaces
Make a Difference in Your Community
Increase awareness and become an ambassador of fitness-related mental health initiatives
Expand Your Career Path
Make inroads in a rapidly growing field that is paving new pathways for mental wellness
Join the movement
Certified Fitness Support Specialists work to improve the lives of people living with depression and anxiety by developing and executing individualized fitness recovery plans.
Fitness Support Specialist:
Course Curriculum
Module 1 - Mental Health and Wellbeing
Learn foundational concepts about mental health and mental illness, frequent misplaced assumptions and stigma surround the conditions, as well as the latest science surrounding fitness and its effects on the brain.
Module 2 - The Mental Healthcare System in Canada
We take a deeper dive into the current mental health system in Canada, the process of getting help, what various stages of recovery look like and some of the gaps that still plague our system today.
Module 3 - Becoming a Fitness Support Specialist
Here we breakdown the role and functions of what exactly a Fitness Support Specialist is, review your scope of practice and discover how your jigsaw piece fits into the larger puzzle.
Module 4 - The GOALLS Framework
Enhance your coaching and communications strategies for client interactions introduced in Fitness for Mental Health’s own GOALLS Framework.
Module 5 - Putting It into Practice
In our final Module, we’ll put all the pieces together, focusing on developing customized programs and exploring ways how you can get fitness support programs started in your community!
Resource Guide
A downloadable PDF for all your practical exercises, assessment tools, further readings, references and more!
Elevate Your Career and Impact Lives
Gain the expertise to open doors to new career opportunities while making a lasting impact in your community.
Enroll Now For Huge Savings!
Get the absolute lowest rate possible before pricing goes up.
We are confident in the quality of this course and we're happy to provide you with a refund if you're not satisfied for any reason.*
15-day Money Back Guarantee
Join a Growing Community of Certified Professionals
- Be among the first to certify and gain visibility on our FSS Trainer Finder website.
- Provide valuable insight and feedback
- Help us in our mission to improve the lives of millions of Canadians
The Fitness Support Specialist for FMH was such a great training program! I highly recommend it!
This amazing nonprofit organization is starting a movement, and I'm here for it!
The work at CAMH has been the most rewarding of my career.
The Fitness Support Specialist is the designation I'm most proud of having on my résumé.
Fitness Support Specialist FAQs
If you’re a fitness professional who is passionate about mental health and you’re interested in growing your skillset, client base, and industry expertise to make a meaningful difference in your community, then the Fitness Support Specialist course is the perfect continuing education opportunity for you!
The course is designed to train fitness professionals — including personal trainers, group exercise instructors, health and wellness coaches, etc — with the knowledge and strategies needed to deliver fitness coaching as an accessible, safe, and enjoyable treatment to support people living with mental illnesses.
Beyond earning Continuing Education Credits, as a graduate of the FSS course your fitness expertise will be elevated with a research-backed, industry-leading perspective about mental health systems and coaching frameworks. You will be equipped with a comprehensive skillset to expand your practice into new settings with a wider market of clients. Additionally, access to the FSS private online community will be a valuable source of advice, resources, and community to help guide your career and learning.
Moreover, as a certified Fitness Support Specialist, you will join the forefront of a rapidly growing field bridging the gap in the healthcare system for fitness as an important element of mental health treatment. Through creating transformative fitness experiences for people’s individualized needs, you will be able to make a meaningful difference in your community.
The FSS will not certify you as a personal trainer or group fitness instructor. Though it is not legally required, we STRONGLY recommend that you first attain your certification through a respectable governing body.
These certifying bodies provide the foundational information needed to work as a fitness professional and attain contractor insurance.
We recommend looking at the canfitpro PTS or FIS for your certification needs. You can take a full look at our recommended certifying bodies here in our Partner list at the bottom of this page.
No, you do not need to submit any documentation to enroll as an FSS. However, as mentioned above in "Will the Fitness Support Specialist certification accreditate me to work as a personal trainer?", it is strongly recommended that you first hold an official fitness certification before taking our course.
No, it does not. Please see above "Will the Fitness Support Specialist certification accreditate me to work as a personal trainer?".
The FSS course is designed to be completed in 6-8 hours of "class time". Some students may take shorter or longer, depending on their level of prior knowledge, learning strategies, and familiarity with online learning.
Currently, the FSS certification provides 4.0 CECs towards your annual canfitpro PTS or FIS renewal. We are working with other organizations to provide CECs and will update this page accordingly.
You do not need to recertify with us annually to maintain your certification status as a Fitness Support Specialist. With that, we believe staying actively involved in the latest research and practices is of utmost importance when working with our target population.
We are looking at introducing several measures for our FSS graduates to maintain membership, which will include being listed on our Preferred FSS Locator Map on our website. We will have more details on this soon.
Graduating as a Fitness Support Specialist will provide you with valuable knowledge to work with the general population experiencing mental health challenges. It's important to note that work in the clinical and health settings is regulated by a myriad of overlapping regulatory bodies, policies, and safety training programs. FMH is currently involved in advocating at all levels of government (municipal, provincial and federal) along with influencing the public to formally include fitness professionals in all clinical health settings.
We are working tirelessly to bridge partnerships across our industry and all sectors so that one day Canadians can receive fitness support recommendations through their family doctor or health practitioner.
As mentioned above, we are looking at introducing several measures for FSS graduates to maintain their membership, which will include being listed on the Preferred FSS Locator Map on our website.
We will have more details on other measures shortly. For now, we are offering all FSS graduates two years of listing on our website from the date of their graduation!
We offer our program participants and graduates a range of resources! This includes exclusive access to a private moderated online community in which you can enrich your learning and grow your network through discussions with other FSS students and graduates.
Our team is also available to provide individual support for any questions, comments, or concerns you may encounter while taking the course.
Currently, the course is available for purchase at a pre-sale discount of 20%, which is $60 off of the full price of $299. If you would like to become certified as a Fitness Support Specialist, we encourage you to purchase access to the course now as it will return to full price once the pre-sale period is discontinued!
Currently, we are only offering the general Fitness Support Specialist course but you can follow our socials at @fitnessformental on Instagram, Facebook, and X to receive updates on any new developments.
If you have an idea for content that would enhance the FSS course, you can send us a message at [email protected]. We are always interested in hearing feedback from the community!
If you have more questions about the course, please contact our FSS program office at [email protected] and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Earn Continuing Education Credits
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