News

As of March 2021, implementation of 86% of the recommendations from the President’s Advisory Committee on Student Mental Health report has been completed. Work is currently underway on the remaining 14% (5) of the recommendations, which the Committee on Student Mental Health (CoSMH) aims to address by the end of April 2021. CoSMH hosted the University of Waterloo’s inaugural Virtual Conference on Student Mental Health Research in November 2020, during Thrive Week.

The Committee on Student Mental Health will host the University of Waterloo's inaugural Virtual Conference on Student Mental Health Research on November 5th, 2020, as part of Thrive Week. The goal of this event is to bring together members of the Waterloo community to share knowledge, connect researchers, and promote mental wellness through 10-minute oral presentations and pre-recorded poster presentations. Topics broadly pertaining to student mental health will be explored with an emphasis on the following key themes:

The Committee on Student Mental Health (CoSMH) began the new year with a full agenda, with robust discussion about recommendations 12, 25, and 29.

As of this month, 26 of the 36 recommendations from the President’s Advisory Committee on Student Mental Health (PAC-SMH) report are in progress or have been completed.

The Committee on Student Mental Health (CoSMH) initiated discussion on three new recommendations:

This month, the Committee on Student Mental Health (CoSMH) moved forward by voting to confirm the completion of two recommendations addressing service access and delivery (27 and 32).

The Committee on Student Mental Health (CoSMH) reconvened on July 26. As of this meeting, 39% of our recommendations are in progress, and 33% are complete. All of the top 10 priority ranked recommendations are either complete or in progress, and the committee aims to vote to confirm the completion of those recommendations by the fall term.

CoSMH voted to confirm the completion of the following work:

The Committee on Student Mental Health (CoSMH) voted to confirm the completion of recommendation 15, which calls for mechanisms to encourage faculty to address wellness and mental health as part of curriculum development. The Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) provides resources and workshops to support integration of mental health, resilience and support resources into curriculum and course development. Deans, chairs and directors will be asked to share messaging on CTE’s many offerings in faculty council, department and school meetings, and with sessional instructors.

On April 5, the Committee on Student Mental Health voted on the completion of recommendation 18 based on the training modules the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response team has established on campus. Director of Equity Gina Hickman addressed CoSMH to share updates from the Provost’s Advisory Committee on Equity (PACE) and its working groups.

Recommendations 17 and 20 have been completed, with ongoing work to be continued by the appropriate campus bodies. The Committee on Student Mental Health (CoSMH) has begun to address recommendation 22, which proposed mental health literacy training for students, staff, and faculty. CoSMH will work closely with a mental health training steering committee directed by Campus Wellness, as well as with Chris Read, (CoSMH member and Associate Provost, Students), to determine the scope of training for students.