3 students walking outside on VIU Nanaimo Campus

For faculty and staff

Need help Now? Crisis and Emergency

As a member of the VIU community you have the opportunity to support students who may be struggling with issues that affect their, mental health, academic success, and well-being. Counselling Services supports faculty and staff in a number of ways:

Supporting students in distress

  • Learn how to respond to students in distress. There are additional tools and information on workshops and the Resource Request and Referral Forms system as noted below.
    • The Resource Request and Referral Form can be submitted by faculty, staff and students.
      • Use if there is no immediate threat
      • Can link student with useful resources to address their situation as they may need extra support or intervention
      • Does not go on any student record

We understand that it can be a stressful time for all parties involved when supporting a student in distress. We encourage employees to use Homewood Health and/or their extended health benefits. For more information, see the Employee and Family Assistance Program (EFAP) page. 

Orientation to Counselling Services

  • Please feel welcome to share our counselling website with your students to introduce them to Counselling Services.
  • You can also invite a Counsellor to your class for a brief orientation to our services

Consultation

Contact us at 250.740.6416

  • to discuss a concern about a particular student
  • to debrief about any incidents with students involving mental health

Other workshops for faculty

More feet on the ground 

Can't attend one of our Capacity to Connect workshops? Access the More Feet On The Ground half-hour online workshop developed by the Centre for Innovation in Campus Mental Health to learn how to recognize, respond and refer students experiencing mental health issues on campus. This is also a great refresher after taking one of our VIU workshops.

Capacity to Connect: two-hour combo

Supporting Students in Distress + Supporting Life: Suicide Awareness Workshop

Learn to recognized signs of distress, respond effectively and refer students to appropriate resources. We've combined our previous workshops addressing how to support distressed students and suicide awareness. Most faculty gave us the feedback that they wanted this single, more in-depth workshop.

  • For more information or to book one of the above workshops, please email the counselling department at HWCconfirm@viu.ca.

Can't attend a synchronous or in-person workshop? Asynchronous Capacity to Connect is now available!

Requests for letters in support of students 

Please review the Health and Wellness Centre's policy about requests for letters in support of students (eg. to accommodate extensions, proof of illness, etc.).

Conduct Issues: Student Behaviours that Disrupt the Learning Environment

Conduct issues may include yelling, inappropriate language, sending numerous emails or phone calls with inappropriate content, refusing to follow directions, threats, etc. 

Please contact:

Resource Request and Referral Form

  • The Resource Request and Referral Form
    • Use if there is no immediate threat
    • Can link student with useful resources to address their situation as they may need extra support or intervention
    • Does not go on any student record

Well-being in learning environments

There is so much being done at VIU related to wellbeing, but we also wanted to share some excellent resources SFU has. Stay tuned for more.

Workplace Strategies for Mental Health offers links to other resources and useful information such as Canada's legal requirements to support mental health.