Student Health Impact Partnership

The health and well-being of our students is the responsibility of every member of the CUIMC community. Through the Student Health Impact Partnership (SHIP), we aim work collaboratively to challenge the status quo and make a meaningful impact.

What is the Student Health Impact Partnership (SHIP)?

The Student Health Impact Partnership (SHIP) is a collective, interprofessional initiative that brings together students, staff, and faculty at CUIMC in a structured way to achieve community-level and system-wide change.

SHIP:

  • Addresses multi-layered student mental health and well-being concerns
  • Pulls from the expertise of those working with Health Professions students
  • Examines the structural determinants of CUIMC student health and well-being through an anti-racist and inclusive lens
  • Uses a Collective Impact framework

How does SHIP do its work?

SHIP uses a Collective Impact framework, which is a framework for community change based on the idea that members, organizations, and institutions must work collectively–learning together, aligning, and integrating their actions–to achieve population and systems level change. In the Collective Impact framework, the work is done by members of working groups, guided by a steering committee, with input from campus stakeholders and supported by a backbone organization.

  • At CUIMC, the steering committee comprises students, faculty, and staff whose work is directly related to student well-being. Steering committee members also serve as part of different working groups.
  • The backbone organization comprises various members of the Student Health on Haven team.

Working groups are the heart of SHIP. Working groups are where students, faculty, staff, and other stakeholders come together to contribute their time, training, expertise, passion, and lived experiences to help develop and implement strategies for impactful change.

What are SHIP's current initiatives?

As of fall 2024, SHIP has four active working groups: Policies and Protocols, Mental Health Literacy, Curriculum Infusion, and Connection and Belonging.

Policies and Protocols

The AOD Policies and Protocols working group is tasked with:

  1. Reviewing substance-related policies at CUIMC, including individual school and program policies.
  2. Drafting a proposal to amend and align existing AOD policies with an emphasis on consistency across schools and programs, application of best practices, and harm reduction.

The Leave Policies and Protocols working group is tasked with creating alignment and streamlining the leave experience for CUIMC students and will focus on:

  1. Reviewing existing student leave of absence policies.
  2. Exploring best practices.
  3. Making recommendations regarding policies changes.

Mental Health Literacy

The Mental Health Literacy working group is tasked with:

  1. Proposing recommendations that reduce stigma around mental health experiences, treatment, and interventions, decrease barriers to accessing mental health support, and encourage and enhance help-seeking among students.
  2. Creating opportunities for skill building in the broader CUIMC community to effectively respond to and support students’ mental health needs, including an expansion of the Mental Health First Aid program.

Curriculum Infusion

The Curriculum Infusion working group is tasked with:

  1. Creating a shared definition of "student well-being" that informs the infusion of well-being into existing training and curriculum at CUIMC, and assess student well-being using measurable learning outcomes that align with that definition.
  2. Proposing evidence-based strategies and initiatives that support faculty in connecting students to well-being resources and reducing any existing barriers to accessing support.

Connection and Belonging

The Connection and Belonging working group is tasked with:

  1. Examining existing data and identifying opportunities to enhance connection and belonging among students with underrepresented identities.
  2. Creating interprofessional opportunities that enhance students' sense of connection and belonging as members of the CUIMC community.