Summit Overview

A diverse group of British Columbia’s post-secondary students, counsellors, campus professionals, faculty, and administrators gathered in New Westminster, BC, to discuss mental health and substance use on campus at the Healthy Minds | Healthy Campuses Summit 2011 at the Justice Institute of BC.  Healthy Minds | Healthy Campuses Summit 2011 was a unique, interactive “unconference” designed to engage people with diverse experiences and perspectives.  Delegates took in engaging keynote speakers, catalyst presentations and skills-based working groups. Presenters included Dr. Trevor Hancock from the University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy and Nicole Greengoe, the Director of Student Services and Registrar for Camosun College. Proceedings on one day used Open Space Technology, which allowed delegates to identify their own questions and recruit support to build collaborative responses. 

The 2011 Summit sought to increase our proactive engagement with our Campus Administrators and Policy-makers.  To facilitate this, several of the sessions were centred on policy- its theory, its relationship to our provincial Health targets, public policy and determinants of Health, and provided consultancy sessions for policy creation and policy stakeholder work. 

Program

This unique, interactive event featured leading thinkers and utilized Open Space meeting processes. Open Space has been designed to engage people with diverse experiences and perspectives: students, counsellors, campus professionals, faculty, administrators, community organizations and government representatives. 

Summit delegates had the opportunity to:

    •    Enhance their understanding of how “upstream” and “systems” thinking might be applied to campus mental health promotion and healthy substance use strategies
    •    Learn more about the role campus decision-makers have to play in cultivating mentally healthier campus communities
    •    Develop more understanding around intersections between advocacy, human rights, mental health and substance use
    •    Collaborate with provincial and local colleagues around problems, challenges and opportunities unique to their own campuses

Click here to view the full Summit 2011 program.