Our Events

2022 Events

Covid Debrief Event

Our COVID-19 Debrief Event took place this past December 2nd, 2022. Both club members and other UofT students took part in an open discussion around the impacts of COVID-19 on our mental health and well-being. We first discussed three main topics: our initial reactions and emotions relating to the pandemic, some of the biggest challenges we faced during the pandemic, and how our mental health has changed easing back into ‘normal’ life post-pandemic. To conclude, we listened to the widely-recognized and well-known psychologist Pauline Boss talk on the concept of ambiguous loss that pertains to loss incurred as a result of the pandemic and discussed what stood out to us.

In all, we had a great time in a welcoming environment with hot chocolate, tea, and freshly baked cookies served, and great people to lead a uniting and uplifting discussion on such a mentally taxing and difficult time. Stay tuned for a blog post with further details on the main takeaways from this event!

UTSC Homecoming Tabling

Our first-ever in-person appearance at the Scarborough campus made a statement! At the inaugural UTSC Homecoming, our team designed and manned an interactive booth, attracting passerbys from all walks of life to learn more about UofTMHA. In particular, participants enjoyed our claw machine-esque of meaningful and affirming notes, with many and opting to contribute a note of their own.

Sunday, November 27th

Let’s Get Toasty - Gingerbread Event Collab with St. Mike’s Union

This amazing social event provided an opportunity for students to get social, creative and destress during the holiday season! Attendees were able to meet new friends or have some quality time with old friends while putting together gingerbread houses or gingerbread man cookies. We offered hot chocolate with marshmallows along with some festive, holiday-themed music to really bring in that holiday cheer! This was also an amazing fundraising opportunity, with proceeds being donated to the FemiCare: Women’s Shelters Fundraiser organized by our EDI Team of 2021-2022. This fundraiser’s goal is to create care packages to send to two women’s shelters in Toronto: Ernestine’s and Anduhyaun Inc.

Tuesday, November 29th 2022

Mental Health Workshop Collab with The Mindful Project

At this workshop, we invited two amazing panelists who were experts in their respective fields to discuss topics involving mental health, with a fruitful Q&A session in the end! Our first speaker was Dr. William Ju, our acting Vice-Dean, who undertakes a pedagogical teaching philosophy to discuss the importance of student mental health, well-being and the feeling of belonging. Our second speaker was Dr. Jenny Bright, a registered psychotherapist who discussed the importance of mental health from the perspective of spirituality and Buddhism.

Monday, November 14th 2022

“Feel Good”-ie Bags Initiative

Our Fundraising team put together this initiative providing a sweet snack break or an opportunity to give a gift to friends during our stressful midterm season! These “Feel Good”-ie Bags also allowed us to contribute funds to an amazing cause, our FemiCare: Women’s Shelters Fundraiser organized by our EDI Team of 2021-2022. We sold goodie bags at both the St. George and Scarborough campuses containing chocolates, candies, and motivational/reassuring stickers to provide some well-deserved stress relief to our amazing students and their friends and loved ones!

Wednesday, October 19th 2022

Talk it Out: Strangers Read Feelings Event

This was our first in-person event at the St. George campus to kick off the 2022-2023 academic year! It was a friendly space with snacks and an opportunity to really connect deeply with new friends. Here, we had our attendees anonymously write down their true feelings regarding any topic, whether it was school related, family or relationship related, identity related, and more. Then, everyone read aloud one another’s confessions anonymously. The group was able to discuss these confessions, sharing times when they might’ve had similar feelings, with the point being that everyone knew they were not alone in their struggles.

2021 Events

Open Mic Night

Held in collaboration with the UofT Equity Studies Student Union, our end of year Open Mic Night was hosted on April 2nd, 2021 at Alternity Community Hub, to fundraise for the Women’s Shelter Initiative. Throughout the night, talented performers engaged in their own unique, creative and authentic ways with the theme of “Raw Expression”. From passionate karaoke, to energetic musical numbers, moving spoken poetry, and courageous impromptu performances, students beautifully expressed their truest selves, a fitting conclusion to an amazing year.

“A Window into your Mind” Journaling Event - journals sponsored by Do Good Paper Co!

TThis was an informative & interactive event held through zoom, hosted by the 2021 First Year Representatives and Co-Vice President Rohina, with 40 attendees excited to learn about journaling. Participants described it as a wonderfully rewarding experience, where they learned about unique ways to begin their personal journaling journey, with an emphasis on maximizing its mental health benefits. In particular, reflective journal prompts allowed participants to introspect and share their dreams and feelings, demonstrating the power of journaling & community in full effect. As well, 20 lucky participants won a free journal courtesy of our wonderful sponsor, Do Good Paper Co, giving them extra motivation to continue journaling!

Valentine’s Day Candygrams:

On Valentine’s Day, we decided to celebrate love with something sweet at Sidney Smith Hall. We sold Candy Grams to individuals on the St. George campus, with the option to add a personalized tag for themselves or their special someone and donated 100% of the proceeds to CAMH in order to support mental health research and support. To spread love and positivity through words of affirmation, we also handed out inspirational and motivational quotes to random people across campus, as well as gave a chance for others to write an anonymous note to their special someone so we can shout them out through our club’s Instagram story. Through a random raffle draw, one lucky individual who placed a preorder through us won a free journal given to us by one of our lovely sponsors DoGoodPaperCo. Lastly, we also made a video compilation by asking individuals who approached our booth on-campus “What’s your favourite memory with your loved ones?” & “Share a message to someone who’s alone on Valentine’s day.” You can click here to watch these videos:

Watch the video:  https://www.instagram.com/tv/CaKfZUtPBQv/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Interview series with mental health professionals

The Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion team launched a Weekly Q&A Series, where they interviewed Canadian professionals and researchers to discuss all things mental health! The questions that were asked to professionals during these interviews were compiled and collected from all the questions our followers (primarily comprising of UofT students) all sent in via our anonymous question submission form! Through this initiative, we hoped to discuss more taboo and generally stigmatized topics surrounding student mental health, address common misconceptions people might hold, focus on the effect of various intersectional identities on mental health as much as possible, and essentially, start conversations regarding these struggles. Feel free to take a look at this video series either on our YouTube, or our Instagram.

Speed drawing with UofTMHA

The Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion team hosted a Speed Drawing event on January 18th, 2022. In light of the new year and another lockdown in Ontario making individuals feel a lot more isolated than usual, we wanted to provide individuals with an opportunity to introspect, reflect, and learn a little bit more about their own mental health. The goal of the event was to indulge in some reflective exercises through the medium of art, regardless of artistic expertise. Participants were given some mental health-related prompts, after which they were given 2-minutes to draw whatever comes to mind upon hearing that prompt. This was then followed by a 10-minute group discussion where each individual briefly presented their “speed” drawing and what it means to them (although this participation component was left completely optional for participants).

November 27th, 2021

Building Bridges, Building Knowledge: A Mental Health Panel

We hosted a virtual mental health seminar in collaboration with the Seminar Team at the Psychology Students' Association, where we invited clinical psychologists Dr. Babineau, Dr. Goldstein, and Dr. Kohut to discuss topical issues in the discipline of university student mental wellness. The discussion touched upon topics such as how certain factors in childhood & adolescence may contribute to mental health difficulties, how university students can adopt certain strategies to better cope with such struggles, and how we can change the narrative and become more sensitive and inclusive in our approach to talking about mental health-related topics.

2020 Events

March 1st, 2020

The UofT Mental Health Conference

We held this informative and resourceful conference to raise awareness about mental health and the issues that surround the topic. Also, the event was a fundraiser as professional speakers came in to discuss the different perspectives of mental health ranging from nutrition, suicide, natural paths, addictions and etc.

February 9th, 2020

Ride Cycle Club Charity Ride

The Ride Cycle Club works to promote physical activity and community involvement. Our team attended this charity ride to raise money and promote physical activity among our University of Toronto students. We always promote a healthy mind, healthy body lifestyle with exercise.

Annual Overviews

2020

Overview

This year we expanded our association to all three campuses; St. George, Scarborough and Mississauga. We redirected our club initiatives and expanded our departments to include diversity and equity, fundraising, a first year mentorship program and etc. As a team we maneuvered obstacles regarding COVID-19, tome sure support is still available to students.

2019

Overview

We attended a Soul Cycle event and also held our Mental Health Conference where we had professionals in specific fields come and discuss the importance of mental health from their fields of expertise. We also made an immense effort to increase our presence on Instagram and Facebook so we can connect with our community.

2018

Overview

Throughout the year the team did lots of research on how to properly maneuver and overcome mental health issues as well as figure out how to utilize this information to provide resources for the club. The founders also attended the Suicide Survivors Conference which lead the team to expand focuses to add addiction, depression, stress, anxiety and found support. Further, we expanded the team and created various social media platforms to get our community more involved.

2017

Overview

Our main focus was to reach out to the St. George campus to raise awareness and increase club visibility. We worked to pair with other clubs and groups on campus. An achievement we have is lobbying with the UofT Health and Wellness.

2016

Overview

The University of Toronto Mental Health Association was founded in 2016. The association's major focuses through the year consisted of suicide prevention and awareness. We worked to make partnerships with local charities that focused on suicide, promoting them to students and working to improve the resources available outside the campus. Both founder of our association participated and collaborated with the Toronto Distress Centre, who provided insight and resources for both suicide prevention and mental health awareness.

University of Toronto Mental Health Student Association

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Statement of Land Acknowledgement
The University of Toronto Mental Health Student Association would like to acknowledge this sacred land on which the University of Toronto operates. For thousands of years, it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people, including First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land. The territory consists of ceded land, covered under the Toronto Treaty 13 of the Upper Canada Land Surrenders, and the Williams Treaties, as well as unceded land that continues to be contested. To learn more about why we acknowledge the land, please visit: https://indigenous.utoronto.ca/about/land-acknowledgement/.
We can never work to end systemic and institutional violence if we do not centre the narratives of Aboriginal peoples in our collective decision-making for social justice and equity. As settlers on this territory, we directly benefit from a colonial culture that has overseen the genocide, systematic oppression, and exploitation of Aboriginal peoples. In order to engage in resistance and solidarity against the injustices inflicted on the Aboriginal people of this land, it is imperative we constantly engage in acts of awareness and decolonization. We would also like to pay our respects to Aboriginal leaders and traditional teachers both past and present, and to any of those who may be here with us today: physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
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