The UWindsor community is invited to participate in Campus Mental Health Day on Oct. 25, organized by Student Health, Counselling, and Wellness Services in partnership with several campus collaborators.

“Campus Mental Health Day is an opportunity for the University of Windsor to come together to learn more about how we can best support campus well-being,” says Katie Chauvin, mental health and wellness co-ordinator. “We invite all members of our UWindsor community to join us for a day of connection, skill building, and learning.”

The day will begin at 8:30 a.m. in Alumni Auditorium with a breakfast and the launch of the University’s first ongoing suicide prevention program, It Matters that You’re Here. Along with a new suicide prevention website, the enterprise includes a video with nearly 80 members of the UWindsor community sharing messages of hope, encouraging help-seeking, and giving a voice to the often-unseen pain that those living with thoughts of suicide experience day-to-day. The video will be shared publicly for the first time during the Campus Mental Health Day breakfast.

“It Matters that You’re Here has been a meaningful initiative for everyone involved in its development,” Chauvin says. “We are looking forward to sharing this work with our campus and are grateful to local film producers Ken Amlin and Brilynn Ferguson for partnering with us to create an impactful outreach video.

“I’d like to encourage students, faculty, and staff to join us at the Campus Mental Health Day breakfast to view the video and learn more about It Matters that You’re Here.”

In addition to the breakfast, Campus Mental Health Day will include training sessions focused on supporting campus mental health and well-being, including:

• QPR Suicide Prevention Training (Student Counselling Centre)
• Responding to Disclosures of Sexual Violence (Office of Sexual Violence Prevention, Resistance, and Support)
• Identifying and Responding to Students in Distress (Student Counselling Centre)
• Pronouns in Practice (UWindsor PRIDE)
• Recovery Ally Training (Lancers Recover)

Registration is required to attend. To register for the breakfast launch of It Matters that You’re Here and any of the above training, click here.

Additionally, a drop-in Student Support Services Fair will be held in the student centre Commons from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., offering an opportunity to learn more about available student supports.

Throughout the day, Lancer Recreation will host fitness classes in the Toldo Lancer Centre (register here or download the GoLancers app), the Leddy Library will co-ordinate a drop-in wellness zine-making event in the Library Collaboratory from 1 to 3 p.m., and Residence Services will host an art event for residence students.

As a continuation of Campus Mental Health Day, Lancers Recover will lead a Walking Labyrinth activity outside of Leddy Library on Oct. 27 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the student centre will host a Sound Bath experience during the first week of November.