The University is committing to:

• Champion compassion and wellness through its policies, processes, practices and environment.
• Support administrative and academic leaders in embedding the framework’s guiding principles and priority areas in other University strategies and operational plans.
• Continue to support administrative and academic leaders in modelling compassion and in fostering wellness in work, teaching and learning environments.
• Continue to increase professors’ and support staff's knowledge and skills, to foster compassion and wellness through talent development and learning programs.
• Ensure that compassion and wellness are considered in selection processes, onboarding and orientation of new professors and professional staff, as well as in performance reviews.
• Continue to strengthen connections and build bridges across our university community, to benefit from a wide range of interdisciplinary expertise.
• Continue to build a sense of community at uOttawa through fostering safe and compassionate settings and conditions that support diversity and bring us together. 

How you can contribute

For everyone

• Proactively communicate with care and compassion. One possible inspiration in this regard is McMaster University’s Compassionate Communications Toolkit.
• Prioritize mental health and wellness within your learning, teaching or working environment. 
• Foster connectedness for all in a variety of formal and informal ways in the workplace and the classroom.
• Expand on existing recognition and reward programs for students, professors and professional staff. Celebrate success.
• Share ideas across disciplines and boundaries to build stronger, more connected approaches and initiatives that contribute to the mental health and wellness of our community.
• Increase training on and application of intersectionality to address systemic barriers.

For academic and administrative leaders

• Support and promote the Thirteen Factors of Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace (e.g. workload management, clear leadership and expectations, organizational culture).
• Encourage conversations to promote healthy and respectful environments and dynamics.

The University is committing to:

• Continue to develop resources and support to help professors adopt caring and compassionate course design that makes students feel supported and included.
• Continue to encourage professors to take an active role in student well-being by fostering a teaching and learning environment that is inclusive and conducive to mental health and wellness for all.

How professors can contribute

• Expand initiatives that enhance student learning and success in the classroom (e.g. mindfulness, exercises, opportunities for reflection). 
• Foster connection by encouraging active and meaningful contact, cooperation and peer learning opportunities among students.
• Foster connection between yourself and other colleagues.
• Participate in meetings with professors to exchange ideas and teaching strategies.
• Include mental health and wellness resources in syllabi and class sessions.
• Regularly ask students, either directly or via surveys, how they are learning.
• Include caring, compassion and supportive mental health practices in course evaluation and in training.
• Promote the new professor's handbook among colleagues.
• Participate in existing teaching and learning training opportunities.

The University is committing to:

• Continue to support our community in building self-compassion, making time for self-care and strengthening resilience through appropriate programs and services, so that everyone has the skills and access to resources to support their own wellness and help others do so as well.
• Continue to develop mental health and wellness for-credit courses and microprograms, with modules on compassion.
• Strive to expand wellness and resilience skill building training, workshops and peer support programs, to address poor mental health and wellness root causes, as well as transitional stressors, and better prepare students for their first year of university.

How you can contribute

For academic leaders and professors

• Promote UOCompetencies, especially autonomy and resiliency, collaboration and worldview, to our students to encourage skills development and readiness for the future.
• Encourage students to enrol in the skill building wellness seminars, training and courses as well as to engage within peer support programs.

For everyone

• Communicate information on resources available for support staff, professors and students to support their own wellness.
• Participate in existing wellness and resilience skill building training opportunities.

The University is committing to:

• Continue to strengthen our community competencies in recognizing early indicators of concerns as well as more serious distress, to respond with care and compassion, and to refer others to appropriate resources or support on and off campus. We will thus acknowledge that our responsibilities towards ourselves and to others are equally important.
• Continue to enhance and support pathways to mental health accommodations.

How you can contribute

For leaders, professors and support staff

• Get to know the Caring University Community Guide and other tools available to help students, including case management services
• Actively support the provision of accommodations needed in the classroom and the workplace.
• Apply a caring and compassionate approach when asked for support in the classroom or the workplace.
• Actively provide professors and support staff with training on how to support students in distress.

For everyone

• Get to know the wellness continuum self-assessment tool on the Health and Wellness website. 
• Take advantage of opportunities to learn how to help others. One of the university’s main tools is the More Feet on the Ground training program.

The University is committing to:

• Continue to enhance coordination of communication strategies that engage, empower and educate our university community:
  • Promoting our values as a caring and compassionate university, as well as promoting the mental health and well-being of all at uOttawa.
  • Raising awareness of existing programs, resources and services, making them as convenient, direct and inviting as possible, both for ongoing use and for times of need.
  • Raising awareness of all to reduce stigma and support changes in behaviour, for ourselves and others.

  • Continue to break silos between faculties and services.

How everyone can contribute

• Engage in dialogue over messages about mental health and wellness.
• Learn about existing resources and services and get to know the Health and Wellness website.
• Participate in programs and services to improve how you manage your own mental health and wellness and how you help others.
• Tell your peers about the resources and programming you know.

The University is committing to:

• Continue to offer and enhance a spectrum of services to support the mental health and wellness of our students, professors and support staff.  We will ensure that services are supportive, culturally relevant, accessible, timely and easy to navigate.   
• Continue to enhance psychological, counseling and case management systems for students experiencing mental health difficulties.
• Continue to optimize referral protocols between faculties and services.
• Continue to coordinate and expand collaboration with our local communities to enhance access to external services and resources.
• Enhance training in crisis management protocols for the university community and expand and evaluate our peer crisis response efforts.

The University is committing to:

• Continue to empower those in leadership roles to have compassion towards and be a positive influence on others, ensuring that the mental health and wellness needs of students, professors and support staff are understood and taken account of.
• Continue to build the capacity of our university community to proactively support and empower members in their compassion, mental health, wellness and resilience.
• Continue to equip our university community to understand and address factors that affect our individual and collective mental health and wellness.
• Continue to provide train-the-trainers programming to create a sustainable University mental health and wellness knowledge base.

How everyone can contribute

• Students should look at what opportunities are available to them and get involved with them. 
• Professors should look at what opportunities are available to them (for their own well-being), as well what is available to their students and/or what opportunities they can provide, and make these opportunities known. 
• Support staff should look at what opportunities are available to them for their own well-being.
• Academic and administrative leaders should consider opportunities available to them (for their own well-being), as well as look at what is available to support their employees and/or what opportunities they can provide and make them known.