On November 1st, the Innis College Office of Student Life (OSL) launched the inaugural session of its Mental Health Skills Workshop Series. Consisting of several mental health wellness and training events that were offered throughout the month of November, the series will culminate in January with a capstone project — those who engage in every workshop will receive a CCR-eligible Mental Health Skills Certificate. Developed in consultation with students and aimed at empowering the Innis community in relation to mental health, the program represents a notable effort by the College administration to address student concerns, provide skill-building opportunities, and draw attention to available resources.

In an interview with the Innis Herald, Innis College’s Dean of Students, Steve Masse, and Assistant Dean of Student Life, Sarah Burley Hollows, outlined the process of envisioning and implementing the program. Masse traced its inception to a conversation he and Burley Hollows had when he first became Dean in September 2018. At that time, the two flagged health and wellness, specifically mental health, as an “area of interest” for program development. In accordance with that conversation, Burley Hollows began looking into the best practices from the Canadian Mental Health Association and the Canadian Association of College University Student Services. Along with those practices, she considered information on student well-being and mental health from a variety of institutions and institutional surveys, including the National Survey of Student Engagement. By the time a “flurry of student advocacy,” as Masse puts it, led to the organization of two “town halls” in the Winter semester, Burley Hollows had already begun assembling a proposal for what would eventually become the workshop series and certificate.

The first of the two town halls, called “Innis Confessions”, was run by Tony Niu, the Innis College Student Society’s International Student Representative at the time. Originally structured as a de-stress event, “Innis Confessions” adopted an increased mental health focus following a student death at the Bahen Centre. Niu told the Innis Herald that he “especially invited international students to share their experiences as an international student,” but was surprised to find that “everyone there, including domestic students, had drastically different experiences regarding mental health services.”

A group of four student advocates, Oliver Daniel, Annie Liu, Kathy Sun, and Jehan Vakharia, spearheaded another initiative in the form of a Mental Health Forum that invited open discussion and community input on the subject.

Masse was in attendance of both. “What I heard fit quite well with what we’d been hoping to achieve the new certificate,” he noted. “That was really validating for me, seeing… those numbers jump off the page with real students.” He identified that at this point, the project he and Burley Hollows had been working on began to take shape in “intention and initiative.”

Over the summer, supplemental research, assisted by Transition Programs Assistant and recent graduate Maddie Freedman, provided additional direction. Masse pointed to three broad categories that emerged, into which the finalized workshops fall: “there are a number of sessions… that encourage participants to take an inward look at their own mental health and their own well-being, a couple that center student voices and experiences for folks who’ve experienced difficulty related to their mental health, and finally an additional couple of sessions specifically related [to] skill-building, that [hope] to increase the capacity of our community.”

The six-part program began with a launch event on November 1, then proceeded with a “5 Ways to Well-being” workshop run by Health and Wellness. Prior to the launch, participants were meant to have completed an online training module called ‘Identify, Assist, Refer,’ which Burley Hollows said is “a program that’s rolled out quite broadly across campus.”

“We heard from our consultations… that students wanted the ability to help. That resonated quite a bit. They wanted the ability to do something… to help make this place feel a bit more supportive, a bit more inclusive,” Masse said.

“But one of the things that we all acknowledged at the outset was that you need to be in touch with your own well-being, your own mental health, before you’re able to help others. That was one of the reasons why, very early on in the certificate, we hosted 5 Ways to Well-being.”

“Once you’re connected to your own mental well-being and understand the importance of self care, we shift… to the hard skills.” By ‘hard skills,’ Masse seemed to be referring to the safeTALK training session, facilitated by Masse himself in the Innis Residence’s Events Room. SafeTALK, the longest event in the series, is described by the Ontario Association for Suicide Prevention as a “three-hour training program that prepares helpers to identify persons with thoughts of suicide and connect them to suicide first aid resources.” Masse expressed a willingness to run additional safeTALK sessions “as many times as we can get folks in the room.”

The safeTALK training was followed by a Jack Talk, facilitated by the Registered Canadian Charitable Organization jack.org, and administered by two U of T alumni from St. Michael’s College. “That [event] speaks to the need and want of having student voices at the centre,” Burley Hollows emphasized. She said that in this session, “youth and young adults speak to other youth and young adults around mental health… They have—I believe what they call it is—safe storytelling guidelines, and it’s an opportunity to hear others’ stories in a really real setting…that is comfortable for the audience… and allows people to reflect appropriately.”

The Mental Health Roadmap on November 27th had yet to take place when the Innis Herald spoke to Burley-Hollows and Masse. “Students, staff, and faculty are all being invited to participate in an Innis conversation about resources that are available both on and off campus, recognizing that no one resource is appropriate or suitable in all circumstances and for all students,” Masse said in anticipation of the event. With the Roadmap, the diversity of participants’ voices becomes key; Masse described it as “sharing across constituencies.”

Diversity was an important consideration for the design of the program as a whole. Masse admitted that diversity was insufficiently present in earlier versions of the workshop series, and that it was the September consultations with Daniels, Liu, Sun, and Vakharia that highlighted an increased need for equity. “We actually brought back to them… a list of the ways that we ensured that each of the sessions at its core was formulated and developed with principles of equity, diversity, inclusion,” he said.

In January, the final element in the series, the capstone project, will close certificate participations’ experience by allowing them to represent what they’ve learned. “They can be as creative as they like, or fill out a questionnaire that I provide them,” Burley Hollows said, highlighting that the projects will serve a secondary function of gathering feedback. She anticipates that once submitted, they will “help us decide for the future if this was the right process… so that we can do better in the future.”

Burley Hollows expressed a desire to “get as many people through the certificate as possible.” Accordingly, she made herself available for “one-on-one meetings for individuals who’ve missed the launch… to make sure they feel like they can do the whole certificate even if they came on late.”

Overall, a community-centred orientation emerged as a central intention of the program’s design: “The reason we went with the certificate specifically related to the intent to foster relationships and a sense of camaraderie and belonging among participants,” Masse explained. “We also recognize that doing this kind of work can be challenging, and [we know] how important it is for students to have other people to rely upon, to debrief, [and] to talk through difficult situations.”

As for what they hope attendees emerge from the program with? “I hope that participants… feel empowered, feel more comfortable talking about mental health… I hope that they feel that they have the ability to help others who are struggling and get access to resources,” Masse said. “I hope that they feel that the community, the Innis community, is one that is compassionate, supportive, and helpful.”

Burley Hollows added, “I hope that people leave, no matter where they’ve started in their knowledge, feeling that they’ve learned a little bit more, whether that’s about themselves, about others, about wellness, or even in the reduction of stigma.” She believes that the certificate’s current core participants “are really diverse and kind and thoughtful people,” and desires that “they leave… these multiple conversations they’re having really seeing the kindness in others,” and translating that into the communities around them.

Liu, a second-year student specializing in Bioinformatics and Computational Technology, was encouraged that students were consulted and their voices prioritized during the program’s development. “I definitely think that there was a need for people to learn more mental health skills and the fact that Steve was already thinking about this really shows how much different people in the Innis community care,” she said. Liu is now a participant in the program herself and she is happy with the engagement from the student body: “There was a pretty good turnout at the welcome event, more than I expected.” Masse and Burley Hollows had estimated that around 45 students had initially registered and a core of around 25 participants emerged from that group. On this, Liu adds, “it shows that people really care about this and that gives you a lot of hope, you know? The fact that Innis and the OSL [are] trying to find ways to facilitate normalizing this sort of situation is fantastic.”

Vakharia, who is also participating in the certificate, echoed an appreciation for the college’s efforts: “they’ve put in a lot of work into this, and that was really nice to see because it’s just genuinely for student benefit.” He expressed that he had been involved in broader U of T mental health initiatives and calledthe Innis administration’s approach “refreshing” in comparison. “I can say that, you know, we’re at a better place—slightly—than where we were a year ago, but we could be doing a lot better. It’s nice to see the Innis administration be so supportive of our efforts, because you don’t see it so much outside of Innis.”

In terms of what she hopes to see moving forward, Liu anticipates that if this iteration of the workshop series runs well, repeat sessions will be offered in semesters to come. In addition, she’d like to see this program, or a similar one, rolled out at different locations across campus. But she concluded, “[just] as long as this momentum to learn more about mental health keeps going, then I’m satisfied.”

If you’re experiencing mental health issues and would like to speak with a professional, here are some options outside of U of T’s Health and Wellness department:

• Stella’s Place offers free drop-in mental health appointments
  • Website: www.stellasplace.ca
    Location: Spadina Ave. and Richmond St.
• Skylark offers a “What’s up” walk in therapy clinic
  • Website: www.skylarkyouth.org
    Location: Church St. and Wellesley St.
• Good2Talk offers 24/7 free, confidential, professional counselling for post-secondary students in Ontario
  • Phone number: 1-866-925-5454