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:
- Recommendation 5, the creation of a working group to assess examinations and assessments. The Academic Working Group will continue to convene to draft a best practices document based on the existing practices gathered from all six faculties. Contingent on the statements in that document, projected to be complete by the end of the fall term, this recommendation is complete.
- Recommendation 7, embedding universal instructional design into course delivery, and making online resources available to support the integration. Based on the programs and online resources that the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) offers, this recommendation is complete. CTE will continue to do outreach and provide workshops and support to all faculties.
- Recommendation 19, communicating about mental health resources to students, including during orientation. The Orientation Steering Committee, in collaboration with Campus Wellness, will provide opt-in information for incoming students who are interested in learning about our campus resources. The Student Success Office (SSO) has also developed short, 5-minute presentations on wellness, resilience, and coping mechanisms for instructors to integrate into their course material.
- Recommendation 22, training strategy and access to mental health resources. Campus Wellness has hired a full-time health promotion specialist, has made the Do You Need Help poster available, and will regular remind staff and faculty about student supports. The mental health training committee will continue to lead efforts on assessing gaps in existing training programming, and will recommend best practices and strategy for building capacity and providing literacy training for students, staff and faculty.
The draft National Standard for Psychological Health and Safety of Post-Secondary Students will be released later this month for review. CoSMH will review the document and provide feedback, as well as assess whether to recommend the Unviersity of Waterloo become an early adopter.
Keep up to date on our recommendation status and more through the CoSMH website!