Throughout the month of November, GBC’s Peerconnect will be offering free courses centred around mental health and life skills every Monday. Groups will be spearheaded by two student peer coaches who have gone through experiences of navigating wellness while being in school, and who will aid other students in doing the same by building resiliency throughout the modules. According to the organization, the focus of the courses is “hope, empowerment, possibility and connection.”
The Dialog spoke to Martin Muhr, the community coordinator in charge of Peerconnect, to discuss the club as well as the new course offerings.
All of Peerconnect’s services and operations fall under three pillars: good food, inclusion, and well-being.
Before the pandemic, Peerconnect used to run the Good Food Market at the St. James campus. They have since shifted to offering a healthy, affordable food box delivery service in collaboration with Foodshare.
For inclusion programming, the club focuses on providing sign language basics. “It’s not a replacement for an actual class, but it’s to get people used to the idea of communicating via a hand-based language,” said Muhr. “We want to try and create inclusive environments for people so that when a deaf person goes into a doctor’s office or into a dentist’s office, there might be someone there that can say something as simple as hello. It creates a completely different environment for them.”
The final facet of Peerconnect’s offerings is well-being, which the bulk of their programs fall under such as their Discord server. The channel is monitored by coaches who can answer any questions, provide necessary referrals and support in a group setting or one-on-one.
According to Muhr, Discord is a useful platform because it allows students to speak to each other in a low-barrier environment. The software allows students to choose between multiple communication methods, including video, audio or simply texting. “By the time people are done their courses at the end of the day, the last thing they want to do is be on a camera. So really meeting people where they’re at is our goal,” Muhr said.
The third pillar is largely where the new Community Club project will fit in.
Muhr and the two peer coaches created the learning modules in conjunction with student input. Peerconnect previously hosted a co-design event, which allowed students to share thoughts on what they would be interested in learning. After creating a preliminary outline for the courses, the team returned to the students for feedback.
The two courses that will be offered this semester are Adulting 101 and Self Discovery. The former will concentrate on building interpersonal skills such as financial management, whereas the latter will hone in on self-esteem and resiliency. “But for both of the classes, no matter what you’re doing, it is capacity building,” Muhr said.
One discussion topic that will be offered will cover boundaries and self-advocacy. “Oftentimes we’re taught that we should just accept things as they are and with the medical system in particular if you don’t ask, you don’t get,” he said.
With respect to the course format, peer coaches will be leading the sessions. The team plans to engage students in a variety of ways, including group discussions and videos.
“We’re really trying to engage people from multiple viewpoints because there’s obviously different learning styles. And we also recognize that oftentimes, students really know better than we do about what students need.”
The courses, available in a similar fashion at several universities, was inspired by a recovery program offered at the Ontario Shores mental health hospital in Whitby. GBC is the first college to offer this programming. However, Muhr recognizes that college programs tend to be shorter and have demanding course loads. As such, this semester will act as a trial run to see how many students are interested.
Ontario Shores aided in structuring the courses students can enroll in as well as the initial co-design event. The hospital suggested a ranking system for the co-design event which allowed students to select what topics were most important for the courses that would be offered. Ontario Shores will also be supporting GBC in surveying data following the courses and identifying what has worked and what has not worked.
Peerconnect currently aims to run the two courses again in January, with the potential addition of another course. Muhr said that the plan is to run another co-design event concurrently, which will be more in-depth than the last. “We’re essentially starting from scratch again,” he said.
Since the formatting will be entirely up to the students, new courses could hone in on a specific, structured topic or teach students a skill as simple as knitting or cooking.
“Cooking is a life skill that we often aren’t taught. A lot of what we’re we were thinking about when we were doing this is that there’s a lot of stuff that goes out into the world that we’re expected to know that we really don’t know,” said Muhr.
If students are unable to commit to attending the courses, Muhr pointed out that there are plenty of other ways students can get involved with Peerconnect. Students can check out their website, where individuals can sign up for the various programs offered and also join the Discord server.
Similarly, students are encouraged to visit Peerconnect’s Instagram page and access the linktree in the bio for more information. “In terms of other social things that are going on in the world that we think are important and that students might be interested in, we’ll throw onto our linktree as well,” Muhr said.
Peerconnect also offers a social service spot on their Instagram page, where the team has conversations with various service providers at GBC to get a sense of what they can do for students. In the past, they have interviewed individuals from the college’s counseling service or from Student Life.
According to Muhr, the college is planning to create a co-curricular certificate like that of other universities, which rewards non-academic activities that students participate in at the college. In the future, Peerconnect intends for their courses to be available for that transcript. At a minimum, students would have to attend three out of the five classes available. “Because we recognize that life happens. We’re being as flexible as possible.”
