Student government proposes mental health team

BY Lori-Anne Little

BELLEVILLE — A proposal to create a mental health first-aid team is one of several ideas the student government is considering to improve college-wide efforts to support students.

At its meeting Thursday, Loyalist’s first-ever wellness co-ordinator Ryan Stoness brought forth a bunch of ideas to help improve mental health on campus for the upcoming year. His ideas ranged anywhere from decking out campus with yellow benches as part of the Friendship Bench Project to creating a team of students to work as mental health first-aid workers that would attend any large school events, like orientation, sports events, and other large gatherings.

“If you were physically hurt, you would go see first aid. We would create a team of people who at those events, if you are emotionally wanting to connect with somebody … there would be people to sit and chat with you,” says Stoness.

A fifth of Canadians will experience an issue with mental health or addiction each year, according to The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health’s website; of that fifth, youth aged 15 to 24 are the most likely to have to deal with an issue of this sort. This puts a large stress on schools to have the proper resources to aid students that may be struggling.

Student government is currently looking at putting together a new budget line for wellness on campus in 2018/2019. The estimated total of expenses for the wellness department comes to $185,250. The budget will cover salaries, student leadership projects, wellness initiatives, a wellness space and the proposed student wellness ambassador team.

Scott Rook, student president-elect, says that it is important for the school to get more involved because,”It’s definitely a topic that we need to touch on more.  A lot of people like to have this conversation behind closed doors but this is something that a lot of people are going through.”

There are a lot of struggles that come with being a student, said Rook.

“Mental health is a problem on campus because a lot of us are 19, 20, 21 year olds. We’re in a lot of debt, we’re having a lot of complicated relationships with people, we are going through a lot of stress and we’re doing a lot of work. That can just get you down,” he said.

The school’s efforts with this issue need to be improved, but they are definitely taking a step in the right direction- especially since they have hired more people to specifically help students with their mental health, said Rook.

Rook said he is looking into what he can do to help mental health at the college when he takes over the presidency next month. As mental health is a big part of the child and youth care course, Rook said he is going to try and get some of the third year students to host mental health workshops.