Building understanding
We welcome and support the genuine needs, stories and dreams of our College community.
We’ve designed our policies, practices and physical environment to enhance our understanding around mental wellness; this includes a respectful, welcoming culture that reflects this intention as well as the needs of our students and employees. We focus on:
- Creating opportunities and dialogue forums to increase student and employee knowledge of health and wellness
- Building a holistic awareness of factors that can impact our ability to meet health and wellness challenges, from struggling with income or housing, to cultural background or life experiences such as trauma or grief
- Making the link between mental wellness and academic and work performance
- Building awareness of the mental health continuum, affirming that positive, consistent daily habits accumulate for a calmer, more productive life
- Making sure incoming students and new employees know about the resources, supports and services available to them
Examples of wellness activities shared on social media
College-wide actions
Open House
NSCC held two, week-long Open House events, with multiple sessions promoting student supports and on-campus wellness and counselling services.
> 4,150 attended in 2021-22
Get Started
Student services and instructors welcomed incoming students in spring and summer with sessions on student supports, advising, accessibility and wellness offerings. Online events are also hosted throughout the year to welcome and prepare students for College.
> 1,475 in-person attended + ongoing online sessions
New Student Orientation
Orientation offered information on wellness, student supports, NSCC and Me course content in Brightspace and the College’s sexual violence policy and student community standards.
CampusWell
42% of students are engaging with CampusWell, NSCC’s online health and wellbeing magazine.
Keep Connected student eNewsletter
NSCC’s student enewsletter is formatted as a top 10 list, providing students with clear, concise and timely prompts to remember to look after their wellbeing. It increases awareness and promotes the College’s supports, services and intranet as a clearinghouse for all.
Fall student supports and services campaign
The College offers a wide range of supports and services for students and employees. We drive student awareness in fall (and year-round) through:
- A social media campaign, with content shared on the College’s social channels and internal digital signage
- The College’s ‘Keep Connected’ student enewsletter, launched in 2021 with a new issue sent bi-weekly throughout the academic year
In addition to promoting supports and services available through NSCC, we also aim to drive awareness of HealthyMindsNS - a suite of emental health resources for post-secondary students in NS including a safe, anonymous online peer community. HealthyMindsNS runs a fall awareness campaign and we support them by sharing their content.
This approach helps ensure students know they can access College and external mental wellness supports whenever they need them, strengthen their knowledge of mental health issues and provide a wider array of resources, particularly for those experiencing mild to moderate symptoms.
Wellness week
Annually, students and employees share tools and the College’s mental wellness and wellbeing resources, with a virtual toolkit to coincide with Bell Let’s Talk Day in January. Wellness week provides space to talk about mental health and reminds us to reach out for support when we need it, staging authentic conversations and providing connection, play and reflection. For the last week of January 2022—the event’s third year—employees and students enjoyed sessions across all NSCC campuses around the theme of Mind, Body and Soul. Social media content was created and shared to promote Wellness Week events, resources, student tips and employee tips for managing wellbeing.
Small things campaign
This campaign aimed to get students and employees thinking about the small, simple things we can do to care for our wellbeing. The campaign included promotion via social media, print, email (Keep Connected enewsletter), website (blog), CampusWell and Connect. The College's social media audience responded with suggestions for ways to care for one's mental wellness.
Wellness-focused personal development days
Organizational Development coordinated personal development (PD) days with senior leadership, with afternoon sessions on healing, compassion and wellness offered to employees across all campuses. These included:
Reconnecting through storytelling
This moderated virtual session brought together a cross-section of NSCC employees who shared their stories surrounding navigating through pandemic turbulence. 600 employees attended and 56 viewed post-event.
Transforming practice: the way forward
Erica Dhawan, award-winning speaker and bestselling author, delivered a one-hour keynote, Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence, on purposeful collaboration, resilience and organizational success. 890 employees attended the live event and 143 viewed post-event.
Employee wellbeing days
In keeping with the mental wellness strategy, the College provided operational support employees with two paid wellness days per fiscal year (without counting as earned vacation days) for any activity or pursuit in support of promoting their own wellness. The College also extended this benefit to management confidential employees in April 2022.
MindBeacon
In late January 2022, the College partnered with MindBeacon to provide access to online cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for employees. With programs to address stress, sleep issues, anxiety, alcohol use, panic and PTSD, MindBeacon’s guided CBT allows employees to practice at their own pace and on their own schedule, with readings, exercises and the guidance of a dedicated therapist.
The College covers the cost for all term, probationary and continuing employees and their dependents regardless of their status on an NSCC health plan. In addition, the College also covers the cost of peer-to-peer support and MindBeacon’s educational material and monthly webinars.
Flex work policy
The pandemic was a testing ground to explore our balance of efficiency, productivity, and an engaged and healthy workforce. Since March 2020, many College employees have had to work offsite, with limited campus activities as part of our overall response. With the return of students, we once again require more on-campus presence, but we’ve also opted to reconsider the application of human-centric work design and creative workforce planning strategies depending on operational needs. Arrangements fall within three categories: flex place, flex time and flex future.
Campus initiatives
Safer spaces training
Pictou and Cumberland campuses
When we feel safe, accepted and appreciated, we’re better able to learn. On June 2, Madonna Doucette and Sefin Stefura from the Youth Project of Cape Breton visited Pictou Campus with their informative, humorous and collaborative approach to reducing stigma and discrimination, especially towards 2SLGBTQ+ communities. Sixty staff and faculty attended the session. Cumberland Campus teamed up with the Cumberland Sexual Health Centre to host the same training to all employees. As a community we learned the key elements to promote a safe environment for all as allies.
Wellness week events
Annapolis Valley Campus/COGS
Annapolis Valley Campus and the Centre for Geographic Sciences (COGS) in Lawrencetown offered many events and online sessions to promote wellness, with prizes for completing healthful activities through mindfulness bingo, the winter of wellness (WOW) challenge to encourage physical activity, funny pet photo padlet contest and self care day in partnership with Bell Let’s Talk.
Diversity campaign
eCampus
eCampus presented a campaign to celebrate diversity within our community of online students.
Music program
Truro Campus
The Truro Campus library circulated guitars, ukuleles and drums for employees and students to learn how to play or share music together.
Indoor garden
Truro Campus
The Truro Campus library is well known for its large plants and trees, complete with indoor hammock and rest spaces for all to enjoy. A green space that thrives year-round sets a restful and relaxing atmosphere for students and employees drawn to the restorative atmosphere.
Self-care cart
Truro Campus
The Truro Campus library began offering a cart containing teas and snacks for all to enjoy and the Student Association followed suit, adding self-care carts across the campus.
Bibliotherapy initiative
Lunenburg Campus
In partnership with a campus counsellor, Lunenburg Campus library employees created an exhibit promoting bibliotherapy, the practice of using books and storytelling to seek guidance, inspiration and wellbeing. The display was set up near the campus atrium and included a selection of library books, a draw for a bookstore gift card, a reading challenge list with prompts to share students’ favourite books growing up, and books to comfort or change perspective. The community wrote many thoughtful responses, adding more recommendations.