NAIT’s Student Counselling Services is reintroducing Group Wellness Workshops. Tanya Spencer, one of NAIT’s student counsellors, says there’s a high demand for these workshops.
“The problem with a one-to-one session model is that they have a very limited capacity,” said Spencer. In the last year, Spencer and her team met with roughly 1100 students about 3500 times. She says their hope is the wellness workshops will help reduce the load on counsellers, while also providing the relevant and necessary information.
Student Counselling currently offers stress management, relationships, loneliness, grief and loss, increasing confidence, and hope and wellness workshops. The format of the workshops is a one-hour session focused on teaching different strategies to help students.
NAIT’s Student Counselling Services says it also hears suggestions from students and welcomes their ideas.
“I think that a good addition would be self-harm and self-deprecation, that also ties into self-confidence but I know a lot of people with stress start thinking about darker thoughts and suicide so I think a workshop on that specifically would be very beneficial,” said Alexander Freesin, a NAIT culinary student.
Student Counselling Services will continue to offer regular appointments and urgent consulting, along with the group workshops. You can contact them on their website to set up a session.
