SP0188: Mindful and Compassionate McGill

In the quest to support current demands of McGill's mental health services, this project intends to offer evidence-based mindfulness and compassion-based approaches, as prevention and treatment adjuncts. First, the programs will be adapted to meet our student population needs (i.e. reducing the number of sessions and using appropriate time schedules) with the help of experts in the field (i.e. compassion scientist, Dr. Kristin Neff; mindfulness-based intervention specialists Dr. Soham Rej and colleagues), university staff and students. Second, given the increasing demand of student seeking peer-supporters and floor fellows (scaling up from 50 to 400 in the past year), we wish to also support these student-supporters at McGill, by integrating a 3-hour mindfulness and compassion-based module at their yearly training. This will strengthen their personal and supporter skills fostering their own self-care and providing better support for students reaching them Third, in order to ensure sustainable support of mindfulness and compassion practices across campus, McGill staff will receive certified training and will keep providing this service to be named "Mindful and Compassionate McGill", which will be promoted under 'Healthy McGill' once funding is received.

The project mandate aligns with Student Services initiative to allow rapid intake and granting services for students in need of mental health prevention and treatment services. This project's continuation will be supported by Student Services in collaboration with experts in the field. Most importantly, as we build a mindful and compassionate community within the university's grounds, our project intends to reach all of McGill's stakeholders and will most likely further develop services for interested staff and general McGill community.

Resources from the SPF will be used to compensate workshop facilitators, and purchase materials for mindfulness exercises.