After my experience as a first-generation student, I became passionate about the intersection of post-secondary student well-being and population health. It’s an honour to learn, work, and serve alongside a community of colleagues who share similar interests. I hope to provide a perspective from a polytechnic institution when supporting identified provincial priorities. [BCIT]

I am beginning my journey with HM|HC and was interested in taking steps to advocate for the students that I support within my institution’s counselling department. Topics such as anxiety, low moods, trauma, and neglect are common symptoms discussed by students, and though there is benefit to counselling within a post-secondary system to support them, the corrupt financial and political systems also contribute to continued unnecessary suffering. I hope to learn from this committee and take action to tackle some of these issues. I am honored to be a part of this committee and enacting action that supports my words. I hope my actions will help students live with meaning and receive the support they need. [Langara College]

As a new member of HM|HC, I am thrilled to be connected with such an amazing group of people all dedicated to supporting post-secondary students with their well-being.  The wide-spread recognition that mental health and wellness are vital to student success across educational institutes is inspiring and encouraging for a former secondary school teacher.  I am excited to continue to help break down barriers and provide education in collaboration with my peers at Healthy Minds | Healthy Campus. [Selkirk College]

As an international student pursuing health sciences in Canada, my passion for addressing students’ mental wellbeing started in an academic environment and was further expanded through my experience as the Hi-FIVE Movement for Mental Health Coordinator at SFU Health and Counselling Services. My aim is to ensure that students have access to support and services that allow them to prioritize their health and wellbeing while pursuing their goals, and I hope to connect, share, and learn during my involvement with the HM|HC Leadership Committee. [UBC]

I am passionate about post-secondary student health and wellbeing and believe the HM|HC contributes to this in a meaningful way. Part of my role at UNBC is to provide strategic direction to the areas that provide health and wellbeing services and supports to students across all our campuses, and I believe this role has strong connections to supporting and guiding health and wellbeing initiatives in post-secondary institutions across BC through HM|HC.  Not only do I feel like I can contribute to the wider conversation surround wellbeing and healthy campuses, but I believe I can learn a great deal from the folks within the HM|HC Leadership Committee and am honoured to have the opportunity to participate in this incredible community of practice. [UNBC]

As a post-secondary educator, I have seen first-hand the challenges that students face as they pursue their academic goals. Having recently completed a PhD focused on students with mental health related disabilities studying online, I am thrilled to be a part of the HM|HC leadership committee where I hope to contribute to making all Canadian post-secondary institutions more health promoting. [UVic]

I believe health equity and mental wellbeing are intrinsically linked experiences and I aim to be human-centered, relational, reciprocal, and strengths-based in how I engage with the communities I serve. I am in the process of exploring decolonial approaches to mental health promotion and believe that the systemic level that HM|HC works at can allow us to create learning environments where all students can flourish. I am excited to join the HM|HC community and look forward to learning and growing alongside a vibrant community of colleagues. [UBC]

I am beginning my journey with HM|HC; I was drawn towards a community of practice that supported empowering dialogue, worked to reduce stigma, and encouraged help-seeking behaviours in all members of the campus community. I look forward to contributing to the HM|HC Leadership Committee and working towards building thriving and compassionate campus communities that prioritize well-being. [NIC]

Having a passion for opening the dialogue around substance use and working towards its destigmatization, HM|HC felt like a perfect opportunity to further expand this mission while coming together as a collective to create and foster healthy communities on campus. I am currently a psychology student at UBCO and this will be my first year with the Leadership Committee at HM|HC. I am looking forward to both learning and sharing ways to create a positive impact on campus well-being. [UBC]

I am excited to be a part of the HM|HC Leadership Committee to create transformative change on campuses and to learn from each other’s experiences and expertise. I am passionate about health promotion and well-being and practice from a harm reduction and intersectional lens. I have previously worked as a registered nurse, a program manager for a wrap-around service, and as a campus health specialist nurse. These experiences have exemplified the importance of a multidisciplinary approach and centring people with lived experiences. I am looking forward to collaborating with the Leadership Committee to support campus well-being and community flourishing!

I am an openly trans masculine non-binary, queer and disabled person from a small town. I have been involved in other groups within COTR and Cranbrook and love being a part of that, which is why I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to be a part of HM|HC and working with everyone involved. Social justice is an incredibly important thing for me and that passion only grew as we saw the world change over the 2020 pandemic. Harm reduction became a topic I grew invested in as I heard reports about the overdose deaths in BC over that time frame. Harm reduction to me is another branch of mental well being. I also hope to work in harm reduction when I am graduated. With that all being said, I am excited to see what I can learn from and share with HM|HC. [COTR]

Liisa has found the work of Healthy Minds | Healthy Campuses to be a vital support in her work both as a Counsellor and as Manager of Counselling and Student Wellness.  Liisa has been learning with the members of HMHC since the very first conference!  She deeply values the learning that happens when folks come together with shared intention and is honoured to serve on the Leadership Committee. [CC]

It has been an honour to be involved with Healthy Minds | Healthy Campuses over the past few years.  I believe support for the whole person is crucial to meeting one’s academic goals and I see Healthy Minds | Healthy Campuses as an integral part of this work in our province. This group has been an active part of: promoting campus wellness initiatives; encouraging and empowering students;  offering opportunities for dialogue amongst students, staff, faculty, senior administration, community groups and government; and expanding all of our ideas about what it means to be well and stay well on post-secondary campuses in BC. [UVic]

I am thrilled to join the HM | HC Leadership Committee because I’ve always had a passion for exploring mental health and helping others thrive through focusing on it. I’ve been working for a while now with people from different cultural backgrounds, and through those experiences, I’ve learned how to better approach the topic of mental health depending on a person’s values and perspectives. I hope to make this knowledge useful in my collaboration with HM | HC and help more students find the right approach to their mental well-being and use various tools and methods to strengthen it. I am also looking forward to deepening my own knowledge about mental health through communication with incredible and talented people I am honoured to be on the same Committee with. [UFV]

As I begin my journey with HM|HC, I am looking forward to being a part of this community dedicated to promoting and supporting campus well-being. I hope to connect with all members, with aim to learn, establish better understanding and communication so we can build upon the great initiatives of HM|HC.  [TRU]

Mahboubeh became an HM|HC Co-lead in 2021. She is passionate about bringing dialogue and inquiry to campuses, schools, communities, and other settings to support (mental) health and healthier relationships with substances. [CMHA BC​] 

Bakht previously served the Support Team as a Co-lead (2019-2021) and helped to facilitate increased student participation in HM|HC.

Tim has been involved with HM|HC in a support role since 2007. With a concern for consistent implementation of a robust health promotion, culturally attentive and dialogic approach, he has especially sought to contribute to appropriate initiatives promoting healthier relationships with psychoactive substances on our campuses and has co-authored various resource guides relating to that endeavour. [UVic] 

Sarah has been involved with HM|HC for more than 10 years and worked with every HM|HC coordinator or co-lead since its inception in 2004 and its transformation to a community of practice a few years after. She has worked in mental health and substance use literacy and knowledge translation, including in settings-based approaches, for over 20 years. Sarah first disclosed her own history of mental illness and recovery during her valedictory address in 2000 in an effort to bring more conversations about campus mental health out into the open—and she’s been committed to that goal ever since. [CMHA BC​] 

Dan was the original visionary for HM|HC and its leading thinker from the initiative’s outset in 2004 until his passing in Sept. 2023. Across those years he continued to help us reflect more critically about assumptions, orientation and practical implications in various aspects of our endeavour. These matters include a humanistic perspective on health promotion that upholds agency and social responsibility, as well as a phenomenological approach to substance use and to responsively capturing the meaning and value of interpersonal experience. Another facet involves the challenge of engaging in genuine dialogue to enhance mutual understanding and enable inclusive collaboration. Dan saw himself as a servant of our community of practice and related to its members attentively. We are deeply indebted to this wise mentor for his humble demonstration of caring support and earnest encouragement.

A dedicated page expands on this account. It also includes a photo gallery on Dan in the HM|HC context, and provides a detailed bullet point record of his formal engagement in and many contributions to HM|HC.