CSWHP partnership advocates building healthy communities
The Center for Student Wellness & Health Promotion (CSWHP) has partnered with UCI Athletics to address mental health with student-athletes and teams. Two signature programs, the “Step Up UCI! Bystander Intervention Program” and “Behind Happy Faces” are packaged together as mandatory for all teams, alternating between the two each year.
The “Step Up UCI!” program trains and encourages participants to pay more attention to what’s happening around them, recognize issues of concern, and then take an active role to intervene or help someone in need.
The “Behind Happy Faces” program helps students understand the difference between mental health and mental illness (and everything in between), recognize that we are all struggling with something and need care and support, and that there are a variety of resources they can utilize for support. Participants also discuss how to develop personal strategies and coping skills to enhance their own mental health, as well as effective skills and strategies to support someone who may need help.
Because these programs are alternated each year, a student-athlete will experience each program twice, at two different points of their UCI journey, and thus should experience the program from a different lens. This effort has gotten very positive feedback from the student-athletes and has already shown signs of making a difference in how they pay attention and confront issues that concern them, especially when supporting their teammates.