Community Wellbeing
Launched in summer 2023, Community Wellbeing takes a systems-level approach to address issues impacting well-being across the campus community. Governed by the Community Wellbeing Steering Committee, the department aims to foster creative and collaborative community-led solutions to campus-wide issues and allow for meaningful impact for all members of the TMU community.
A community-wide approach to well-being
In the fall of 2023, Community Wellbeing spearheaded the implementation of a campus-wide consultation plan to discuss their vision for the future of well-being at TMU. Through an online survey, interactive engagement sessions and the development of a community conversation toolkit, CW was able to capture and highlight diverse perspectives from across the university.
With a commitment to collaboration at its core, Community Wellbeing engagement served as a pathway for cross-departmental connections and community dialogue. The engagement sessions allowed community members to reflect upon and articulate their experiences in living, learning, working, and playing on campus.
In addition to engagement sessions, Community Wellbeing conducted the Canadian Campus Wellbeing Survey – a national survey offered to postsecondary institutions to learn more about the well-being experiences of students and employees across domains such as physical health, mental health, food security, substance use, system navigation, safety, eco-anxiety and others.
Our community consultation process was able to cultivate a culture of openness, inclusivity, and mutual understanding that will help set the stage for the development of our Community Wellbeing Strategic Framework (CWSF).
The CWSF will map out creative and collaborative community-led solutions to campus-wide issues that support the overall health and wellbeing of students, staff and faculty across the university. Thank you to our partners and key stakeholders across TMU, including the Office of the Vice-Provost Faculty Affairs, Office of the Vice President Equity and Community Inclusion, Office of the Vice Provost Students, and Human Resources for their support in this initiative.
900+
respondents to the Canadian Campus Wellbeing Survey
One Stop Shop for well-being
Based on data and conversations with students, staff, and faculty across TMU, Community Wellbeing identified a common concern around accessing information related to available well-being services. To address this need, Community Wellbeing developed a proposal to create a ‘One Stop Shop’ – a centralized resource of all available services and initiatives related to mental health and well-being for the TMU community, both internally and in the surrounding neighborhood.
To bring this initiative to life, CW applied to the “Bell Let’s Talk” Post Secondary fund to address gaps in implementing the National Standard for Mental Health and Well-Being for Post-Secondary Students. The application was successful, and CW was granted the maximum funding of $100,000 over two years to build, launch and maintain the One Stop Shop. Work on planning for the site has begun in collaboration with stakeholders across the TMU community, with an anticipated launch date of fall 2024. On January 22, the Community Wellbeing Steering Committee hosted Bell Let’s Talk Chair Mary Deacon to celebrate this accomplishment.
On Bell Let’s Talk Day, TMU received $100,000 from Bell to support mental health initiatives for students.
ThriveTMU
In 2023, ThriveTMU was integrated into Community Wellbeing as it aligned with the unit’s upstream approach to well-being in support of the entire TMU community. ThriveTMU is a training program that teaches students, faculty and staff the core concepts of positive psychology and resilience. The training program is based on the “Five Factor Model of Resilience”, which includes mindfulness, gratitude, optimism, self-compassion and grit.
Thriving in Action is a program for students that brings mental health, well-being, equity, and learning strategies together in a unique intervention to build resiliency and support student success.
This year, we started collaborations across campus to increase access for students most in need, including those on academic probation. Our partnerships and initiatives include:
- Fresh Start
- Compass
- FiT for Business
- GTiA
- Guest lectures across multiple programs
- Thriving in Action Institute: Brings together faculty and staff from TMU and post-secondary institutions across Canada to learn how to implement the principles of our programs in their support of students.
4,000+
students reached through ThriveTMU programming
As soon as Community Wellbeing was launched as a new unit in 2023, we hit the ground running to build relationships across campus and develop a Community Wellbeing Strategic Framework to guide the next stages of our work.
By taking an upstream approach steeped in health equity and a social and structural determinants lens, we’re hoping to influence and address barriers to well-being and co-create innovative approaches in domains such as mental health, physical health, safety, community belonging and more. We look forward to building on our initial successes to support the TMU community to thrive.
Lee Hodge, Director, Community Wellbeing