For Faculty and Staff

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 Early Alert System as noted below.
  • The Early Alert System
    • Use if there is no immediate threat
    • Can link student with useful resources to address their situation
    • Does not go on any student record

Orientation to Counselling Services

• Please feel welcome to share our 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: Supporting Students in Distress + Supporting Life: Suicide Awareness Workshop - 2 hour Combo!

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.

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:

• Director Student Affairs 250.740.6406
• Office of Student Conduct Support 250.740.6594
• Director, International Student Services 250.740.6384
• Security 250.740.6600
• Learn more about Student Conduct

Early Alert System

• The Early Alert System
• Use if there is no immediate threat
• Can link student with useful resources to address their situation
• Does not go on any student record

• Collaborative Assessment Referral and Education Committee (CARE)
  • Students may need extra support or intervention, this committee has representatives from across the campus

• Risk and Threat Assessment team
  • For any safety concerns you may have

• Identify and Respond to Student Needs - Summary page of behaviours in students, appropriate responses and contacts at VIU

• Referring students in distress From BCIT recognizing distress, how to respond, refer and more resources for your classroom

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.

• SFU Healthy campus learning environments - Various work done by different faculties, resource library
• 10 guidelines to build wellness in online classrooms

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