The Strand: Mental Wellness Commissioner is a relatively new position within VUSAC. What do you think your role and responsibilities are?
To create an environment where everyone would be able to have access to the resources they need in the most comfortable manner. To have events and workshops where we can provide support to those suffering from mental illness, but also help people prepare for it if it ever does affect them.
Have you been involved in student politics before? What draws you to the Mental Wellness Commission?
This is my first venture into student politics. Running for Mental Wellness Commissioner was an extremely personal decision after having a year that was pretty rough. I would like to help anyone who is going through something similar and make sure they have all the support they need.
What will be the main focus(es) of your tenure?
I want to focus on is making access to resources easier for the community. We have a ton of resources, like our embedded counsellor as well as CAMH on the other side of campus. It was quite a challenge for me to find out about all this. I want to create a one-stop module with all the resources and their purpose to ease this process.
The broader purpose of the Mental Wellness Commissioner is to advocate for programs relating to mental health and reducing stigma around mental illness. What are some specific changes you would like to make which would improve this mandate?
Reducing the stigma towards mental health is a necessary first step if we want to make people comfortable towards reaching out for help. Having drop-in discussion sessions that are informal where people can come in and talk about their experiences can help normalise the issue of mental health as something ubiquitous and affecting all of us.
Also, we should have more feedback regarding the kind of programming students want and cater our agenda towards that.
Do you see any potential challenges in your role and how would you address them?
Neither myself nor any member of the commission would be an expert or qualified to deal with mental health issues ourselves. It is important we acknowledge this and not try to take matters into our own hands but use all the help we can get from people more qualified and competent than ourselves.
It is easy to tailor events around what we personally feel would be helpful instead of taking into consideration the requirements of the community. This is where I believe we should gather as much feedback from the community as possible before planning a program.
Mental Wellness Commissioner Interviews were conducted through email. This has been edited for clarity and length.
