News Archives: Mental Health Awareness Workshops
Tuesday, October 21st, 2014
Every second Wednesday in the next couple of months will offer an opportunity for Grande Prairie Regional College students to access information and support for issues of mental wellness through Awareness Workshops. The workshops are presented by the GPRC Peer Counselling Program and the Students’ Association of GPRC, with support from ACMHI (Alberta Campus Mental Health Innovation).
The workshops will be facilitated by Community Helpers, an organization which builds on strengths already in the community by training young people to provide peer counseling to others. The GPRC Peer Counselling program has parallel goals and function and has been in place for the past several years.
The topic for the first session on October 22 is “Handling Stress” and subsequent workshops will cover “Self-Care: Taking Care of Yourself,” “Relationships and Social Issues.” And “Depression and Suicide Awareness.” The subject matter for the workshops is designed to address concerns commonly faced by post-secondary students.
Students are encouraged to bring their lunch to the 90-minute sessions which are designed to provide self awareness and tools for self-help as well as linkages to available support.
Programs such as Community Helpers and GPRC Peer Counselling support the activities of people within a community who are considered by others to be helpers. These helpers possess traits and characteristics such as empathy, care and compassion so that others feel safe in divulging information about health/mental health problems, or problems they are having with family and friends. These innate skills are enhanced through specific training such as communication skills, the helping skills, the self helping skills, coping with stress, suicide awareness, knowing when people need help, information on local resources/professionals and referring people to others.
“Peer Counselling at GPRC provides a service to students in need or at risk, as well as an opportunity for students who would like to develop their own counselling skills,” says Susan Bansgrove, Vice President Academics and Research. “We are very proud of the work our staff and students are doing to provide this service, and to initiate resources such as this series of workshops.”
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