Dartmouth is celebrating Wellbeing Week: Spring in Action starting Monday with activities and resources for faculty, staff and students to help support overall wellbeing and mental health.
The events will culminate Friday afternoon with Unwind Your Mind, a community gathering on Mass Row dedicated to “increasing and elevating the dialogue around mental health and wellness issues in a positive and celebratory way,” said Caitlin Barthelmes. , Director of Student Wellness. Center, one of many co-sponsors of the event.
Unwind Your Mind will feature information booths for a variety of student organizations and campus offices, a raffle, free refreshments, and a host of activities including yoga, dyeing, spike ball, sanity screenings and paint cans that contain succulents.
Siddhant Babla, the wellness program coordinator, says it’s an opportunity to show and strengthen the caring community that exists in Dartmouth. “There is a wide range of mental health resources available in Dartmouth, provided by dedicated and caring professionals and peers,” says Babla. “We bring all of these stakeholders together to give attendees a comprehensive overview. We hope this event will allow them to engage with resources that meet their needs and provide students, staff and faculty with the opportunity to connect around mental health ideas and initiatives.
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We hope this will be our most successful and well-attended event to date.
Award
Alexandra Lenzen, Associate Director of Dartmouth Counseling Center
The Dartmouth Counseling Center, another co-sponsor of the event, has held a similar event for students for the past five years “as a way to de-stigmatize mental health issues, create an opportunity to learn more on mental health resources and to promote suicide prevention,” says Alexandra Lenzen, Associate Director.
After two years of virtual programming due to the COVID-19 pandemic, events will once again take place in person. “We hope this will be our most successful and well-attended event to date,” Lenzen said. “We hope Unwind Your Mind will provide the Dartmouth community with an opportunity to come together, have fun, learn something new, and connect with resources.”
Heather Earle, Director of the Counseling Center, explains that a number of student organizations have helped organize the event over the years, and this year the name has been changed and contacts with other departments have been made. occurred.
“We’re very grateful for this involvement and couldn’t have done it without the support of the students,” says Earle.
The week’s events, which coincide with National Mental Health Awareness Month, are an opportunity to highlight ongoing efforts, initiatives and services that are available year-round, Barthelmes says.
“For example, weekly yoga and mindfulness sessions are routinely offered quarterly at Dartmouth,” she says. “Students can schedule recordings with professional staff, graduate students, and undergraduate peers throughout the year.”
Wellbeing Week and Unwind Your Mind are part of Dartmouth’s ongoing efforts to improve mental health on campus, which includes its four-year partnership with the JED Foundation’s JED Campus program, says Katie Lenhoff, JED Assessment Project Manager. .
In recent on-site visits with Dartmouth’s undergraduate, graduate and professional schools, Jed representatives and stakeholders on campus explored ways to “promote social connections, increase research behaviors help and provide mental health and addictions services,” says Lenhoff. “Unwind Your Mind advances our work in these areas as we seek to develop a comprehensive, systematic, cohesive, actionable, and sustainable strategic plan to strengthen campus-wide mental health.”
Other co-sponsors of Wellness Week and Unwind Your Mind include the Dartmouth Graduate Student Council, Dartmouth Mental Health Student Union, Student Assembly, Sexual Assault Peer Alliance, Class of 1977 and Wellness at Dartmouth.
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