A Note on the Current State of EngSoc Mental Health Initiatives
Hey all readers!
My name is Awn Duqoum, and for some time now I’ve been maintaining this blog. Now that this term is over (or close to being over) I thought it was right to take a few moments to talk about where we are as a faculty in terms of mental health. I apologize for all our readers who expected a story this week, I assure you that the blog will be back in full force at the start of the Fall 2017 term under B-Soc.
The Mental Health Blog
The blog is very dear to my heart, coincidentally it’s also the initiative that takes the majority of my time. This blog was started a few terms ago now, but has started to gain a lot of traction in the last few months. This term my main goal was to extend the reach of the blog and release 12 posts, one for every week in the term.
In terms of reach, the blog is now shared on more locations. I was able to work with the EngSoc advertising commissioner to get the blog shared on the EngSoc weekly emails. I’ve also extended our reach my working with The Iron Warrior! IW was amazing and published 3 of our blog posts this term. Talks are still underway to get our posts in the Imprint in the future.
The extend reach has definitely been noticed in the blogs stats, this term we had our first article break 4k reads! Including only the blog posts were released this term, our average reads were ~800 per week. Our old article still get a fair bit of traffic and our true average is closer to ~940. We are also now on the list of top writers for mental health right here on Medium.
Another awesome development this term was the interest we received from the administration. Dr. Hamdullahpur [President of the Universtiy] appeared on our blog this term and there has been talk of a repeat appearance in the future. Dr.Sullivan [Dean on Engineering] has also agreed to appear on our blog, but because of timing was not able to be featured this term. I’ve also began a new initiative within the blog, and that is to invite professors to appear on this blog, Dr.Ward being the first of a hopefully long line.
So what is the future of the blog? B-Soc intends to take this over during the fall term and have hired Adele Chui and Sabrina Mattiassi to be the blog directors. I am extremely excited to see all the amazing work they will do next term!
MATES in Engineering — EngMATES
For those of you who don’t know, MATES is a counselling-based, one-to-one peer support program offered by the Federation of Students (FEDs) and UW Counselling Services. MATES provides services to students who are experiencing social difficulties, mental health challenges, and transitional challenges adapting to university life or different cultures.
I have been working this term, as the EngSoc MATES Commissioner, to continue all the awesome work by B-Soc counterparts started back in the winter, and I am happy to announce that we had great success. This term we’ve increased the number of engineering MATES from 6 to 7 and we hope to grow that number to even more for the fall term.
Along with increasing the number of volunteers, we’ve also seen an increase in engineering MATES usage this term, a trend I hope to see continue going into the fall term. I’ve also been working with a handful of different people to acquire room for a new MATES office in the engineering quad, which should open in the fall term.
Post Secret
For those who don’t know, post secret is an initiative that we’ve run for a handful of terms now. It allows the student body to get anything off their chests by submitting them anonymously and directors would write them out and post them on a board outside of POETS — the engineering lounge. This term we elected to run the initiative for the entire term and saw a large amount of submissions, filling up the board within the first few weeks of the term.
Social (De-Stress) Events
Every term directors run various de-stress event to let the student body relax and take a break. This term we ran, yoga, Let’s talk mental, coffee with MATES, and puppies in POETS. Our events saw the same normal turnout we expect, but a lot more puppy time which I’m counting as a success.
So where does that leave us? Well there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of mental health awareness. Are we as a society in a better place then we were last term? I’d say so, a lot of good work has been put in this term and I have no doubt in my mind that B-Soc will either do as much good work or a ton more in the fall!
For now all I can say that it’s been an absolute pleasure to be able to serve the engineering student body and to be able to promote the importance of mental health on campus. It’s been a rough ride, I’m not going to lie it’s been tiring, the blog is a massive undertaking and I welcome the chance to take a break, but if I had the choice to do it all over again I would take it in a heartbeat. I wish each and everyone of you good luck on finals or the last few weeks of coop or whatever you are up to while reading this!
After a lot of months I’m happy to be able to say that this blog is moving on into new hands, and that my role in maintaining it is now over, this is my last article. I leave the blog with only one hope, that all the hours I put in the blog, all the emotional burden that I had to carry for these terms makes at least one person realize how important mental health truly is.
