The Graduate Student Wellness Centre provides peer support, group therapy sessions, information and resources, workshops with organizations on campus and a space in which graduate students and particularly vulnerable communities among students can feel safe, supported and work towards improving their personal and the collective well-being.
When students build community connections, they feel the positive effects on their own mental health and also contribute to the wellness of other members of the community. The Graduate Student Wellness Center will help to begin and facilitate the process of restoring graduate student health in English and Film Studies Department.
Peer support runs on a volunteer basis, and graduate students are trained through the Community Helpers Program, in order to learn the necessary skills and knowledge to support their peers’ mental health and well-being, refer students to resources, and handle emergency situations, should they arise.
While peer support is central to this initiative, a professional counsellor, who offers group therapy once a week until the end of the semester through an intersectional feminist framework will be provided in order to help students restore their mental health.
Additionally, the centre features a variety of resources from the campus community, such as posters, fliers and pamphlets, and will establish a library that students can consult for information.
Finally, the centre organizes workshops with on and off campus organizations who will come to the Department to speak to students about safe spaces, self-care, anti-oppression practices, and setting boundaries, because education is key to facilitating meaning change in our department and on campus.