Queen's for the Boys: Engaging Male Students in Health Promotion Activities Queen's University

Introduction: Several years ago the university was stunned by a spate of high profile student suicides and accidental deaths; events that spearheaded activities to address mental health issues among students. Absent from the movement was any systematic effort to address substance misuse issues associated with mental health. This collaborative research project provided this opportunity and members of the team felt that students needed to be empowered and engaged in order to affect meaningful change. This presentation will provide an overview of four key initiatives, as well as preliminary evaluation findings:

1)      A summit approach engaged male students as leaders to raise awareness, develop and implement promotional events on campus. Labelling themselves as “For the Boys”, they boldly rebranded a saying typically associated with substance use, risk taking and other negative connotations of masculinity. Their activities have focused on increasing campus dialogue about substance use and addressing institutional structures that have particular influence on substance use patterns and mental health.

2)      The Substance Use Continuum Model (SUCM) and associated Substance Use Wellness Tool was developed through focus groups with students and family members. The SUCM has been validated, and is promoted as a self-help tool enabling students to reflect on their substance use patterns and their impact on everyday life. The intention is to broadly disseminate this tool in order to raise awareness of the link between substance use and mental health; novel partnerships with university and community organizations are being developed as a vehicle for distribution. Dissemination will be assessed by the number of products, distribution locations, partnerships created and student familiarity with the tool. 

3)      A contact-based education (CBE) approach involves students sharing their lived experiences about substance use and how it has impacted their everyday lives. In mental health, CBE has been shown to elicit improvements in knowledge and create positive attitudinal and behavioral changes. To date little is known about the features of CBE that can lead to positive change in the area of substance misuse, and this is a focus of our initiative.

4)      A campus wide expressive art activity engaged students in sharing their substance use experiences on campus in the form of anonymous creative postcards. Developing spaces to dialogue and raise awareness of real life experiences can enable collective consciousness, leading to impactful social change. Evaluation focuses on analysis of postcard content and response to the key messages.