May 6, 2013
A refuge for students
New building, fresh support bolster mental health support at Waterloo
Small but sunlit, the composure room in the new Health Services Building at the University of Waterloo highlights the attention to detail being paid these days to mental-health care.
Most of the services on the second floor focus on mental health. The composure room offers a refuge where overwhelmed clients can collect their thoughts. The building opened in February. The Canadian Mental Health Association has designated May 6 – 12 as Mental Health Week, with a focus on youth this year.
Barbara Schumacher, director of Health Services at the University of Waterloo.
“Universities used to focus on their mandates to teach, and people either sank or swam in the environment they were in,” says Barbara Schumacher, director of health services. “Now we say there is a lot we can do to enhance the success rate.”
Mental-health problems are most likely to first appear in the 18-24 age group, a cohort that also tends to take chances, skimp on sleep, and abuse drugs and alcohol. Shouldering heavy course loads and high expectations to succeed, some students can be pushed to a normally unthinkable brink.
“If students aren’t safe and we’re not promoting their well-being, there is a high risk of students falling into that category of contemplating, or actually attempting, suicide,’’ says Mark Beadle, director of campus wellness.
It’s not just about the homework
While post-secondary schools across North America still counsel homesick students and provide guidance around workload management, they are also doing a better job of looking out for stress, bi-polar disease, depression and other mental-health challenges.
“The numbers of people coming through the door, and the seriousness of the issues they are presenting, continues to climb,’’ says Tom Ruttan, director of counselling services.
On the other hand, he adds, society has opened up about mental health. “So you have people who are more comfortable asking for mental-health services”.
About 20 full- and part-time counsellors work at Waterloo, either in the main counselling offices in Needles Hall, or in faculties on campus. With psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, physicians, nurses and other professionals sharing space in the new health services building, Dr. Schumacher hopes to see a holistic approach to mental-health care.
Health-care professionals aren’t the only ones promoting wellness in the university community. Staff, faculty and students host a Mental Health Wellness Day in October to spread the word on services offered at Waterloo.
