EAST CENTRAL — The advanced education and health ministries has invested $130,000 into a collaborative partnership between Healthy Campus Saskatchewan and 19 post-secondary institutions across the province to support students’ health and wellbeing.
“This is the first time that all 19 institutions have worked together in this type of collaboration,” said Rachel Trann, adult basic education and student services manager at Carlton Trail College.
“It is an initiative that began a few months ago and we knew we wanted to move it towards this direction where we’re a more formal collaborative partnership.”
The initiative will focus on and improving students’ mental health, suicide awareness and prevention, sexual violence prevention, substance use, pandemic responses, and inclusive environments.
According to Healthy Campus Saskatchewan spokesperson Bev Drew, the key benefit of this partnership is the ability to share resources, information and ideas.
“Healthy Campus Saskatchewan will work to advance the conversation around student health and wellbeing to help us be more proactive in addressing the evolving needs of students in the province,” Drew said.
In addition to sharing resources, Trann said they expect the collaboration will also assist with data through the Canadian Campus Wellbeing Survey.
“This will be a survey that will be provided to all learners in this current school year to help us determine where our students are struggling, what’s working well for learners – to ensure our supports really aligns with what our students are needing,” she said.
So far, the group has so far had several online discussion forums and agreed to a social media campaign to raise awareness about the program.
“We have lots of online discussion forums, online education opportunities and then just because we’re in our infancy stages, we’re seeing what will come out of the Campus Wellbeing Survey to help determine what our next steps are,” Trann said.
