Campus Living Centres’ 2nd Annual Mental Health Symposium
On May 24th, 2018 Campus Living Centres hosted their second annual Symposium on Mental Health & the Student Experience. The event brought together 80 student affairs professionals from over 20 Canadian postsecondary institutions.
With the purpose of creating meaningful dialogue and exploring the role of student services in mental health, the symposium was a full day of professional development, featuring nine presenters and keynotes. Topics included responding to mental health related deaths on campus, assessing data from the National College Health Assessment, exploring the duty of care in student support, and reviewing challenges and opportunities within colleges and universities.
Our keynote presenter, Dr. Edward Connors has extensive experience working with First Nations communities across Canada, specifically in the areas of mental health and suicide prevention. In addition to the keynote, Dr. Connors hosted an interactive cultural sensitivity workshop that trained non-Indigenous service providers to better understand the worldview of Indigenous student. As postsecondary schools see an increase in Indigenous students, it is becoming more and more important for student affairs to understand the perceptions and experiences of Indigenous students.
Campus Living Centres would like to thank all of the attendees and speakers at the symposium. It was a day full of learning and discussion that brings us all one step further in our quest in supporting students.
For more information about the symposium, please email our Director, Residence Life & the Student Experience, Greg Hum, at ghum@campuslivingcentres.com.
Algonquin College Residence Life Team hosts Canada-wide CLC Retreat
From left to right: Dimple, Andrew Mendes (Director of Operations at Rideauwood Addictions & Family Services) , Greg, Amanda Neilson (Harm Reduction Consultant, Algonquin College and Rideauwood Addictions and Family Services), Brittanie Walker-Reid, Residence Life Manager, Algonquin College Residence. We are standing in front of a diagram of the ‘Motivational Interviewing Spirit’.
The Algonquin College Residence Life Team will be hosting Residence Life Senior Staff on July 10-11 for the Campus Living Centres Residence Life Management Team Retreat. This Retreat is hosted on a yearly basis at different Campus Living Centres properties by the Residence Life arm of Campus Living Centres. The retreat contains an opportunity for Residence Life Senior Staff to connect, engage in professional development and prepare for the upcoming residence Life staff training conference where all resident advisors and community advisors are trained across the entire company.
For the very first time, the Algonquin College Residence Life Team, with the approval of Campus Living Centres has invited the Director and Assistant Director of Residence Life along with all its Residence Life Managers, Residence Life Coordinators and Residence Community Advisors from each of their properties across Canada to extend this retreat by 2 days to participate in the Algonquin College Umbrella Project’s two-day Harm Reduction Training.
Algonquin College Residence has been celebrated by Campus Living Centres and various other post-secondary institutions for their championing of the AC Umbrella Project having recently won the Ontario Association of College and University Housing Officers ‘Service Award’ (Source: https://bit.ly/2KXNAVu) and with the newly launched cannabis legislation, housing departments both inside and outside CLC are hungry for the Umbrella Project’s highly coveted expertise.
Amanda Neilson, Algonquin College’s Harm Reduction Consultant along with her colleagues from Rideauwood Addiction and Family Services will be presenting the two-day training on ‘Understanding Substance Use and Harm Reduction’, ‘Motivational Interviewing Skills’. This will include a discussion on how the new cannabis legislation relates to the housing field. The retreat will also be opened in the Mamidosewin Centre by its new official drummer as well as an indigenous elder to perform a land acknowledgement and speak to indigenous healing methods as they relate to harm reduction. On day two, the Mamidosewin Centre will guide the attendees on a walk through the AC Botanical Gardens.
For more information, please contact Brittanie Walker-Reid at: bwalkerreid@algonquinresidence.ca
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