Tania Nicholls, Belinda Holmes, and Mary Gauthier from SLC’s Wellness Team will present their research along with researchers from Queen’s University and Kingston’s Addiction & Mental Health Services (AMHS-KFLA) in a poster presentation at the Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health’s Annual Conference being held virtually on November 3, 2021.
The poster highlights the collaborative work and lessons learned on a project designed to both build partnerships and increase capacity around the issue of substance use among post-secondary students, according to SLC’s project lead, Caryn Langstaff, Director, Wellness, Accessibility & Student Success.
"With many moving pieces across SLC, Queen’s, and AMHS-KFLA, this collaboration resulted in successfully providing specialized clinical training to two post-secondary mental health teams, enhancing partnerships and refining assessment and triage practices for community referrals, and developing and implementing of two eight-week psychoeducational groups for post-secondary students," Caryn explained. "This poster will describe the initial goals and planning process, the challenges faced, as well as modifications through rapid cycle improvements to ensure this project’s continued success and sustainability. At the upcoming Conference, the presenters will focus their presentation on the impacts of partnership and building clinical competencies and referral processes, and our new jointly run, sustainable psychoeducational student group supporting students struggling with substance use, misuse, and addictions."
Last winter’s sessions had extremely positive feedback and established connections and better communications between SLC, Queen’s, and AMHS-KFLA, which meant students received excellent support for issues related to substance misuse, abuse, and addiction.
The student support group will be offered again in both the fall and winter semesters, co-facilitated by a counsellor from SLC and Queen’s. The fall session will run for eight Wednesdays starting on Wednesday, September 29 and ending on Wednesday, November 17. Each session will be from 2:30-4:00pm in Kingston on our SLC campus in Room 12050, and virtually.
For more information about the support group, email wellness@sl.on.ca.