Uniting to Encourage the Psychological Well-Being in the Estrie Student Community

Photo: Université de Sherbrooke

This project is piloted from the Centre RBC d’expertise universitaire en santé mentale des jeunes de l’Université de Sherbrooke uses national, international, and local evidentiary records to catalyse the efforts from the colleges and universities in Sherbrooke towards best practices in stress and anxiety management. The following is a summary of the accomplishments oriented towards the goals of encouraging psychological health in the Estrie student community:

  • Startup and coordination of a strategic regional committee of scientific experts, and psychological health experts in each establishment.
  • Start up of a practicing community (with weekly meetups), that hosts Grand Rassemblement with all the psychological health committees to spark collaboration and organisation of a colloquium as part of Acfas 2021.
  • Involving eleven students as interns or research assistants.
  • Surveys on current psychological health issues among students (identifying determinants of psychological health for which to act on).
  • Survey of student participation in psychological health initiatives.
  • Survey on the psychological health of students at the Séminaire de Sherbrooke and Collège Champlain.
  • Crafting a portrait of the initiatives that have already been put into place in each establishment.
  • Consultation with students on ideas for solutions to be implemented at Cégep de Sherbrooke.
  • Evaluation of the student life support network at Université de Sherbrooke.
  • Zen-ith Workshop: Establishing a training program to animate workshops which promote the development of student socio-emotional skills. Implementing an evaluation protocol for the workshops.
  • Creating a catalog of inspiring initiatives to promote the psychological health of the student community (publication of a first and a second version).
  • Evaluation of the new maîtrise en adaptation scolaire course at UdeS, contributing to the caring and empathetic culture in the academic environment.
  • Starting an evaluation of several other initiatives (e.g. mentoring program for international students, peer helper program, student support group, etc.)
  • Setting up of a conference-workshop on Contributing to a culture of care in my surroundings.
  • Creating and broadcasting of the movie series Bien ensemble et avec soi on socio-emotional intelligence.
  • Creating a tool for motivation and online-learning (virtual workshop during the first wave of COVID-19).
  • Forming a report on recommendations and proposals on a possible future design for psychological health phone app.
  • Developing Promotion de la santé mentale en milieu professionnel – UdeS, a course for doctoral and postdoctoral students.
  • Creating the course for masters in education students called Contribuer à une culture de bienveillance et de bien-être en milieu scolaire – UdeS, which can adapt to other environments.
  • Bien ensemble et avec soi: Creating a virtual community with students in occupational therapy – UdeS, adaptable to other settings. Evaluating three cohorts of this virtual community.
  • Offering a workshop in aides à la vie étudiante (AVE) on mental health and empowerment – UdeS, Séminaire de Sherbrooke, accessible to other settings.

Sharing expertise from the practical community has noteably inspired at least twenty internal initiatives within the five establishments.

Project team

This project received a first financial grant of $50,000 from the PRESE in the 2019 call for research proposals. The scope and relevance of the project has resulted in two other grants in January of 2020 and 2021 ($50,000 and $60,000), to support initiatives in the five higher education establishments.

We talk about the project

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