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.
CoSMH heard from Christine Zaza from the Centre for Teaching Excellence, who developed a course, AHS 105: Mental Health Literacy, to be offered on campus in Winter 2020. She is developing an online version, and a similar graduate level course, both projected to be offered in 2020. This course is open to students of all faculties, and provides an embedded method for students to engage with their own mental wellness and mental health in their community. AHS 105 represents just one of UWaterloo’s sustainable ongoing mental health initiatives, and addresses portions of recommendations 7 and 22.
The committee began discussing recommendation 31, which deals with the enhancement of connections between campus services and community partners, possibly including high schools for better transitional support.
Deliberation continued on recommendation 28, regarding training and research on disproportionately affected populations and international students. Counselling Services confirmed that counselling staff have access to professional development funding, and are also currently engaged in cultural competence training with one of their psychologists. The committee is exploring the idea of pulling data from existing surveys and records of service utilization to synthesize information on the experience and perception of supports designed for international students.
CoSMH also invited Robbyn Hesch, Health Promotion and Evaluation Specialist, and Jennifer McCorriston, Associate Director, Health Promotion, to share the results of a literature review on resilience in response to recommendation 21. This recommendation calls for the development of a common definition of resilience, and the development of a campus-wide resiliency training program. A resiliency working group has been struck to identify a common definition based on the literature. Following this, they will conduct an environmental scan, consult with campus stakeholders on strategy, and develop a resiliency program. This group will report back to CoSMH during the stakeholder consultation phase.
On Wednesday, November 6th, over 400 people attended the Student Mental Health forum in person or online. Remarks were delivered by President Hamdullahpur, committee chair John Hirdes, and Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association president Michael Beauchemin. Following a Q&A session, attendees were invited to stay to speak to campus and community experts on six themes, including racial injustice, gender identity and sexual orientation, and harm reduction approaches to substance use. All six themes came from recommendation 14 of the PAC-SMH report, which suggests continuous dialogues with students, staff, faculty and the wider community on those six themes. If you missed the event, you can watch it here!