As counsellors at the UNBC Wellness Centre, we are seeking ways to build relationships and offer further support to faculty and staff as you engage with students. As well, UNBC Health & Wellbeing is seeking to align with the CSA National Standard, “Mental health and well-being for post-secondary students”. We all have a role to play in the development of our UNBC mental health and wellness framework.
We would like to invite you to participate in a 2 hour program/discussion to learn about supporting student mental health and wellness and process your experiences. This program, “Capacity to Connect”, was developed in 2021 by BC Campus and the Ministry of Advanced Education to create training and education opportunities for faculty and staff to better enable them to support post-secondary students with their mental health and wellness.
In offering this program to your team, the hope is by the end of this presentation members should be able to:
–Describe what mental health is;
-Recognize the different ways students can express distress;
-Respond to a student with a mental health concern in an empathetic way;
-Refer a student who is willing/wanting to access support to appropriate resources;
-Explain the role of faculty and staff in supporting mental health and the importance of boundaries when supporting students in distress.
If you, or anyone in your department is interested in having this Open Educational Resource facilitated in a discussion format by UNBC counsellors, we would enthusiastically welcome the opportunity to engage this conversation, provide training with your team, and hear about your experience of supporting students.
You can view and access the “Capacity to Connect” program at: https://opentextbc.ca/capacitytoconnect/
As well, you can access the CSA Standard at: https://www.mentalhealthcommission.ca/English/studentstandard
For further questions or to schedule a time to have this program facilitated, you can contact Annie or Margaret at the UNBC Wellness Center at: wellness@unbc.ca or 960-6369.
We look forward to connecting with you all to further enhance our approach to UNBC wellness,
Annie Kearns and Margaret Fuller, MEd. CCC
Counsellors, UNBC Wellness Centre
Traditional Territory of the Lheidli T’enneh
Office: UNBC 5-195 | Phone: 250-960-6692
Email: Margaretann.fuller@unbc.ca | Web: www.unbc.ca/wellness
