The Thrive Mental Health Roundtable, held in the first week of Thrive Month, brought together faculty, staff, and students to explore strategies for fostering thriving teaching, learning, and working environments at UBC.
The event showcased some of the existing curriculum, resources, and initiatives being led by people within our UBC community designed to promote mental health, wellbeing, and inclusive practices across campus. Through rapid-fire presentations, participants delved into topics ranging from curriculum development to workplace strategies, emphasizing the collective actions being taken to create a Thriving community. Below, we highlight two projects shared during the roundtable.
Rock the Boat
Among the highlights was "Rock the Boat: Using Theatre to Reimagine Graduate Supervision" an interactive resource designed to address challenges in graduate supervision, created by Professor Michael Lee, Dr. Susan Cox and Matthew Smithdeal. The Rock the Boat programming features professionally filmed scenarios, related to various contexts such as staff training and orientations. These videos are supported with a planning guide which describes interested groups keen on improving the graduate experience, how to use the videos and tips on how to facilitate difficult conversations suitable for students, faculty and staff. This resource is open for all to access and has been used in over 15 countries since its launch.
View the trailer for Rock the Boat!
EMPHAsize
Dr. Sally Stewart from UBC Okanagan shared insights from her project on developing and evaluating educational modules to address weight stigma and eating disorders (EDs) within health profession programs.
EMPHAsize, seeks to increase knowledge of Eating Disorders, a psychological disorder that impacts university students enrolled in health-focused courses and health profession programs. Two modules were created focusing on weight bias, stigma, and how eating disorders show up in various contexts.
The initial results of the project showed that the modules helped to increase knowledge about eating disorders. Future goals include broadening module implementation across UBC and other campuses, adapting them for the general student population, and making them accessible to the public.
These projects, alongside the other presentations, highlight the innovative work being done within the UBC community to support mental health and foster inclusive practices. The roundtable underscored the importance of collaboration and shared learning in building a thriving campus environment.
All the presenters at the roundtable
| Presenter | Faculty/ Department | Location | Topic area/Project | Audience of Initiative |
| Elisabeth Bailey | School of Nursing | Vancouver | BSN Self & Collective Care Series (Curriculum/Learning Modules) | Nursing students but available to all faculty, staff, and clinical instructors |
| Helen Sharp | Nursing | Okanagan | Guides to Grief, Loss, and Caregiving A Project of the Compassionate Campus Community Workgroup (Resource) | Faculty/Students |
| Michael Lee | Occupational Therapy | Vancouver | Rock the Boat: An open educational resource for promoting healthier graduate supervisory relationships (Resource) | Graduate students/ Faculty |
| Sarah Carten | HR | Vancouver | Activate Wellbeing Toolkit (Resource) | Faculty/Staff |
| Eden Fussner-Dupas | Faculty of Medicine | Vancouver | In-term Workload Distribution (Resource) | Students |
| Roisin Seifert and Austen Osworth | Education | Okanagan | Queer Thriving and Decolonial Futurity– health equity (Program/Initiative) | Students/Faculty |
| Alyssa Reyes | UBC Rec | Vancouver | Wellbeing Commitment Break (Program/Initiative) | Students/Faculty/Staff |
| Michael Lee | Occupational Therapy | Vancouver | Rock the Boat: An open educational resource for promoting healthier graduate supervisory relationships (Resource) | Graduate students/ Faculty |
| Sally Stewart | Health & Exercise Sciences | Okanagan | EMPHASize: Developing and Evaluating a Series of Learning Modules for Health Profession Programs’ in Higher Education on Weight Stigma and Eating Disorders (Curriculum/Learning Modules) | Faculty/Staff/Students |
A big thank you to those who attended, those who presented and our volunteers. We look forward to sharing more of the great research presented at this and future roundtables in future editions of Healthy UBC.
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