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SWEL ANNUAL REPORT 2025|2026
STUDENT WELLNESS AND EQUITABLE LEARNING humber.ca
ANNUAL REPORT 2025-2026
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SWEL ANNUAL REPORT 2025|2026
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ROOTED IN PURPOSE. GROUNDED IN CARE. BUILT FOR BELONGING.
A MESSAGE FROM THE ASSOCIATE DEAN This was not a simple year.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Mental Health Services...............................15
We navigated a labour disruption. We watched the post-secondary landscape shift in ways that felt uncertain and, at times, unsettling. We worked through organizational change, sector-wide pressure, and the everyday complexity of caring for thousands of students while also caring for each other. And through all of it, this team showed up — with compassion, with professionalism, and with a commitment to our students that never wavered.
Residence Life And Education......................18
That persistence is what this report is about.
Land Acknowledgement...............................2 A Message From the Associate Dean............3 Who We Are................................................4 SWEL By The Numbers................................5 Accessible Learning Services.......................6 Clinical Services..........................................9 Health Promotion........................................12
Student Connection And Community Care.....21 Learning In Action.......................................24 Our People..................................................27 Recognition & Distinctions...........................29 Partnerships & Community..........................30 How We’re Funded.......................................31 Looking Ahead............................................32
Land Acknowledgement Humber Polytechnic is located on the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit. We acknowledge the ancestral and traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe, and the Huron-Wendat peoples. We recognize and deeply appreciate their historic connection to this place. Humber is also home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples, and we acknowledge our responsibility as an institution to ensure that our work — with students, with communities, and with each other — honours these relationships and contributes to reconciliation in action. In Student Wellness and Equitable Learning, we carry this acknowledgement into how we design our services, develop our people, and engage with learners. Leadership, as we have come to understand it, is not about authority. It is about caring. It is about asking: how are people experiencing our collective leadership along the way?
I am proud of this. I am proud of us. Looking ahead, I am genuinely excited. We are building toward something: a department that is not just responsive but proactive, not just service-oriented but learning-oriented, not just present but generative. The work of next year will carry forward everything we have built: stronger infrastructure, deeper partnerships, clearer frameworks, and a team that has proven, under real pressure, what it is made of.
Student Wellness and Equitable Learning is organized around a simple but powerful idea: that belonging, wellbeing, and resilience are not extras. They are the conditions under which learning becomes possible. Our I opened our team’s February Connect Day Pathways for Learning and Wellbeing Curricular with a reflection borrowed from Tanya Talaga: Framework gives shape to that belief — it “In Ojibwe and Cree culture leadership didn’t is the philosophy behind how every unit in mean power, it meant caring.” That framing this division designs its work, measures its stayed with me all year. It is the truest impact, and tells its story. description I have of what I witnessed in this department: people leading through What we did this year was significant. care, at every level, every day. Over 28,000 service touchpoints across the department. 9,000+ individual students Thank you for that. It is the foundation of an reached. Cross-divisional collaborations that unparalleled student experience, and it is broke new ground in accessible experiential what we are building together. We’re excited learning. Published research. A digital mental to share these accomplishments with you all. health partnership that served students outside of regular business hours when we Sterling Crowe (he/they) couldn’t. A residential community of over Associate Dean, 1,000 students held with care by 47 student Student Wellness and Equitable Learning staff who chose to come back and do it again. Humber Polytechnic
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SWEL ANNUAL REPORT 2025|2026
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WHO WE ARE Student Wellness and Equitable Learning (SWEL) is a department within Student Success and Engagement (SSE) at Humber Polytechnic. We bring together a portfolio of services and supports designed to help students connect, thrive, and grow — across every stage of their learning journey. Our portfolio spans six areas of practice: • Accessible Learning Services (ALS): Academic accommodations, adaptive technology, and equitable access to learning for students and apprentices with disabilities. • Clinical Services (Health Centre): On-campus primary care, psychiatry, registered dietitian services, and reproductive health — delivered by a multidisciplinary team. • Mental Health Services: Individual counselling, group programming, outreach, and a 24/7 digital mental health partnership through TogetherAll. • Residence Life and Education: A living-learning community for over 1,000 students, anchored in intentional programming, community development, and student leadership. • Student Connection and Community Care (SCCC): Case management, community connection, and wraparound student support. • Health Promotion: Peer education, campus wellness campaigns, sexual violence prevention, and health literacy programming.
SWEL BY THE NUMBERS Our Organizing Framework: Pathways For Learning and Wellbeing Everything SWEL does is guided by the Pathways for Learning and Wellbeing — our curricular framework for student development and wellbeing. The Pathways framework articulates how we design and deliver our services in alignment with Humber’s institutional priorities and strategic directions. The framework is organized around three interconnected domains:
BELONGING Sense of connectedness to place, peers, and purpose
WELLBEING Sense of resourcefulness and capability to navigate challenges
28,000+ Service interactions, appointments and touchpoints delivered across six teams Clinical Services
12,689
Medical Appointments
Collective Impact: Sep 2025–Apr 2026
18,870
Health, mental health & accessibility appointments
1,095
Unique learners accessing mental health support
Health Promotion
4853
Wellbeing & Prevention Interactions
170
Learners reached after hours via CMHA
Residence Life and Education
1,081
Incident Reports Managed
6,268 physician • 5,949 nursing 398 dietitian • psychiatry clinic launched mid-Feb
1,651 wellness-cart interactions 49 peer active-listening sessions (new)
422 student-support cases 328 community-building events 187 meetings
Accessible Learning Services
Student Connection and Community Care
Mental Health Services
4,658
Accessibility Appointments
3,499 accommodation advising 738 adaptive tech 421 coordinator
2,099
1,523
Mental Health Appointments
Care Coordinator Interactions
455 community-standards interactions • 731 unique learners connected to support
122 distress-related appointments answered
Reaching Further - Partnerships & Digital Support RESILIENCE Sense of purpose and capacity to grow through adversity
Within each domain, SWEL services are designed to connect students to support, develop knowledge and skills, and advance capacity for lifelong learning and wellbeing. The Pathways framework builds upon the original SWEL Curricular Framework which received the CACUSS Innovation Award in 2023 and the Humber President’s Extra Mile Award.
CMHA after-hours partnership
TogetherAll Digital Community
170 unique learners 317 one-to-one sessions 783 support engagements
128 enrolments 74% not otherwise engaged with support 72% identify as BIPOC
Source: SWEL Fall & Winter at-a-glance, September 2025 – April 2026. Figures count appointments, interactions and touchpoints; the same learner may appear in more than one. TogetherAll themes most cited: depression, anxiety, relationships.
A Note on How We Count These numbers reflect recorded touchpoints — appointments, sessions, events, and consultations — across SWEL units for the 2025–2026 academic year. Unduplicated student headcounts are captured where units have the systems to track them (ALS unique appointments; MHS unique learners). The 9,280+ figure draws on these unit-level unique counts. The 28,000+ total touchpoints reflects the full volume of service interactions and includes multi-service utilization — students who accessed more than one area of support.
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SWEL ANNUAL REPORT 2025|2026
ACCESSIBLE LEARNING SERVICES
YEAR IN REVIEW
Our Mandate
Who We Serve
We coordinate and deliver the institutional response to disability-related academic barriers — grounded in law, guided by equity, and expressed through care.
ALS serves learners with disabilities year-round — alongside prospective students, families, faculty, program teams, and placement partners — connecting at the moments that matter most: the start of term, periods of academic difficulty, and major transitions such as the move from high school to post-secondary.
In plain terms: we make sure students with disabilities can actually access their education. Working from the social model of disability, we coordinate accommodations and services through shared responsibility and collaboration across the institution.
Learners are supported across 12+ primary disability categories — most commonly mentalhealth-related disabilities, learning disabilities, and ADHD.
Accommodations are not discretionary or preferential — they are necessary measures that ensure equitable access. When the whole campus understands that, support becomes more consistent, more timely, and more proactive.
Our Year In Numbers
5,002
4,000+
664
Accommodation Letters Issued (unique students)
Appointments Delivered
New & Prospective Learners Engaged
400
173
40
Learners at Transition to Success Events
Staff-attended Presentations
Participants in Vibe & Connect
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– ALS Team, SWEL Annual Report Submission, 2025–26
SERVICE MODEL
BELONGING
A New Model for Access: Stepped Care 2.0
Belonging by Design: Vibe & Connect
In Fall 2025, ALS advanced to Phase 2 of its Stepped Care 2.0 service model, introducing refined roles and clearer service touchpoints. The model leads with universal programming that opens accessible entry points into services, strengthens collaboration across the institution, and frees capacity to support learners with more complex needs — a deliberate shift from a single, reactive response toward a layered system of support that meets learners where they are.
Vibe & Connect created intentional space for ALS learners to connect, find peer support, and build community — offered both in person and virtually so participation stayed flexible and inclusive. Learners helped co-design the group’s goals and agenda, keeping the programming relevant and grounded in lived experience. Attendance was modest, but engagement ran deep: participants returned and asked for more, confirming how much structured spaces for connection matter — especially for learners who can otherwise feel isolated.
RESILIENCE
STRUCTURAL EQUITY
Confidence at the Crossroads: Transition to Success
Equity in Experiential Learning: The WIL/ALS Working Committee
TTS events meet students at the moments where uncertainty runs highest. This year the team reimagined the experience, delivering its first Winter and Spring learner panels in a true all-handson-deck effort — with dedicated spaces for engagement, breakout rooms for connection and belonging, and genuine dialogue between learners and the wider campus community. It reflected ALS at its best: thoughtful, nimble, and centred on the learner.
One of the year’s most significant crossdivisional collaborations brought ALS and WorkIntegrated Learning together to ensure students with disabilities have full, equitable access to placements, co-ops, and experiential learning. The committee built a comprehensive WIL contact list spanning programs and institutions (Humber and the University of Guelph-Humber) and aligned roles and expectations across teams — closing a historically underserved gap in the student journey. Key leads: Amy Baird, Niall O’Connor, Roshi Wagley, Dimple Rai, and Elaine Belanger-Porter.
FOUNDATIONS
Building the Foundation: Equitable Learning Policy & Procedure ALS advanced critical work on Humber’s Equitable Learning Environments Policy and Procedure for Disability Access and Academic Accommodations — strengthening consistency, clarity, and institutional alignment. It is foundational work that translates legal obligation and the social model of disability into durable, college-wide practice.
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Connected Across The Sector ALS extended its impact well beyond campus. A collaboration with Surrey Place brought specialized behavioural-intervention expertise into the classroom for an individual learner; participation in the Signal 49 research initiative (Fostering Neurodivergent Talent: Advancing Work-Integrated Learning in Canada) contributed to national conversations on neurodivergent talent; and a partnership with MeWell broadened access to learning-strategy and counselling support. Ongoing engagement with the College Committee on Accessibility Issues (CCAI), AHEAD, and the Canadian Accessibility Network kept the team aligned with sector-leading practice — and helped put Humber’s work on the national map.
Also This Year • ALS Roadshow: Accessibility services brought directly to students across campuses; for many, a first introduction to what ALS offers. • Scholarship process, redesigned: A streamlined, learner-led workflow that reduced back-and-forth and cut wait times for students and staff alike. • A culture of recognition: A monthly positive-feedback practice surfacing unprompted learner testimonials — real-time evidence of care, responsiveness, and equity in action. • The Memory Aid Project: A more equitable, student-centred approach to exam accommodation, led by Roshi and Niall. • Assistive technology: 400 touchpoints at TTS and AT events, and a BSWD Assistive Technology Resource Book accessed roughly 100 times.
CLINICAL SERVICES
Looking Ahead
ACCOMMODATE A new software system to streamline processes, tracking, and communication for students and faculty
GROWING STUDENT STAFF Expanding peer support, lived experience, and capacity within ALS
SCALING THE ALS ROADSHOW Deeper, more intentional engagement with faculty and campus partners
Our Mandate
Who We Serve
Clinical Services is Humber’s on-campus primary care clinic — delivering physician, nursing, psychiatry, and registered dietitian care that meets students where they are and reduces barriers to health, so they can participate fully in learning and campus life.
Roughly 67% of the students served are international learners, and for many, the Health Centre is their only point of access to primary care in Canada. A large share first arrive for placement paperwork — immunizations and health clearances — and leave knowing the full range of care available to them.
In plain terms: think of us as your family doctor’s office on campus — the nurses, physicians, dietitian, and front-desk team who know your name.
We are a full primary care clinic — and many across campus don’t know it. Physician and nursing care, a dietitian, immunizations, sexual and reproductive health, mental-health navigation, and medical clearances: we are a health home for a student’s whole time at Humber, not just a place to send someone who is sick.
Our Year In Numbers
20,800+
“All of the staff I’ve connected with at Humber have been so supportive and I’m truly grateful. That’s what my college experience is about, building community. I’m so thankful that you are now part of my community... Great people that will do anything to help you get to places are the ones that will always mean something.” – ALS learner
Awareness remains the biggest challenge: the student population is young and largely healthy, and many don’t think they need us until they do.
4,115
67%
Physician & nursing appointments delivered
Unique learners served
of students served are international learners
~$1.4M
478
661
Revenue generated through medical billing
Registered dietitian visits
Flu shots across two campuses
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YEAR IN REVIEW ACCESS & EQUITY
NUTRITION
For Many, the Only Door to Care
A Dietitian On Site
With no out-of-pocket cost and no OHIP requirement, the Health Centre is, for a large majority of the international students it serves, the only primary care they can reach in Canada. Many come in first for a form — an immunization record or placement clearance — and discover a full clinic behind it: physicians, nurses, a dietitian, and care that follows them through their time at Humber. The model removes the barrier before the student even has to ask.
Registered Dietitian Jana joined the team in 2025, and demand was immediate — 478 appointments spanning weight management, diabetes, digestive health, nutritional deficiencies, and food insecurity. In early 2026 the service moved to billing students’ private insurance (with no cost to the student), and the model is now approaching full cost recovery. It is one of the clearest examples of student-centred care and responsible financial stewardship working together.
MENTAL HEALTH
SEXUAL HEALTH
#YouMatterHumber: Suicide Prevention, Led from Within
Sex+ Clinic: Meeting a Top-Five Need Head-On
The event began with one clinical nurse for whom suicide prevention is deeply personal, who named a gap and helped fill it. Built with the Mental Health and Health Promotion teams, #YouMatterHumber brought SafeTALK mini-workshops, crisis resources, and a “Take What You Need” wall to the E Concourse, reaching an estimated 148 students alongside partners including CMHA, Good2Talk, and the Toronto Distress Centre. The team has committed to making it an annual initiative.
Sexual and reproductive health consistently ranks among the top five reasons students book with our physicians — so this year, aligned with National Sexual Health Awareness Week, the team launched the inaugural Sex+ Clinic, a February drop-in fair with Mental Health Services, the WEP team, the LGBTQ+ Resource Centre, and community partners Moyo and Merck. An estimated 400 students moved through; one booth alone logged 300+ engagements. The clear next step from the debrief: a dedicated men’s sexual health space in year two.
For Dr. Wong – “Dr. Wong has been a great support to me, He has been seeing me regularly over the last few months and helped me through a really difficult time.” – Student
Also This Year • Psychiatry, newly on campus: A new psychiatry service launched in February to address significant student mental-health need, seeing 8–9 students per clinic day. • Nursing mentorship: Each semester the team hosts thirdand fourth-year nursing placement students from the Faculty of Health & Life Sciences — immersed and mentored in real primary-care practice.
Looking Ahead OUTREACH & AWARENESS Too many students still don’t know the clinic exists — closing that gap is the team’s Wildly Important Goal, through stronger signage, classroom presence, and promotion where students already are.
FRICTIONLESS ACCESS
• Into the classroom: Connected with Massage Therapy and Early Childhood Education program leads to preparing students for placement and promote the clinic.
An online booking refresh is underway to make navigation into care as seamless as possible.
• Gender-affirming care: Trusted to walk alongside students through gender-affirming care journeys — some of the team’s most meaningful work.
SIGNATURE EVENTS The Sex+ Fair (September and February) and the annual Flu Clinic (November) anchor the year’s preventative-care work.
For Jana – “Thank you for being so loving and patient and being so kind! I told my parents about you! You are exactly the type of dietitian I needed at this time.” – Student
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HEALTH PROMOTION
YEAR IN REVIEW
Our Mandate
Who We Serve
Health Promotion builds the conditions for student wellbeing at a population level — leading upstream efforts in prevention and early intervention, building institutional capacity, and empowering learners with the skills to make informed decisions about their health, grounded in community and guided by evidence.
Guided by a healthpromotion and population-health approach, the team serves the broader student population across both campuses.
In plain terms: we’re the team that promotes student health and wellbeing through education, outreach, and upstream-focused initiatives — equipping students with the skills and knowledge to seek help and make healthy choices and working with partners to strengthen care across the community.
We lead upstream – focused on prevention and early intervention, not crisis response. Through intentional coaching, training, and mentorship, we empower students to build lifelong wellness skills and develop leadership capabilities needed to drive meaningful health promotion change.
15,968
94%
Wellness cart educational breaks delivered
Accounts reached on @peerwellness_humber
Felt belonging after a peer active listening sessions
692
357
82%
Student-led wellness challenge participants
Workshop participants across campuses
Would seek help after attending Humber Let’s Talk
– Peer Active Listening Participant
PREVENTION
STUDENT LEADERSHIP
Meeting Students Where They Are: The Wellness Cart
Students as Health Promoters: The Student-led Wellness Challenge
Launched in Fall 2025, the Wellness Cart brings wellness education directly into high-traffic campus spaces — reaching the nearly half of students who don’t engage with campus life beyond class. In brief, five-minute peer-led breaks on topics from time management to consent and movement, the team delivered 1,412 educational breaks across both campuses this year. Our work suggests that brief, peer-led interactions create real openings for connection, learning, and engagement.
Now in its second year, the Student-Led Wellness Challenge is co-designed and delivered by learners from the Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nutrition and Healthy Lifestyle Promotion and Workplace Health and Wellness programs — who write the proposals, manage logistics, and facilitate the events. Four events drew 692 participants for cooking demonstrations, stress-reduction activities, and Traditional Chinese Medicine practices like ear-seed treatments and healing herbal teas. The model empowers students as health promotion change agents, strengthening their skills through hands-on, real-world application.
BELONGING
RESEARCH & LEADERSHIP
Peer Active Listening: Belonging Through Connection
Quality and Continuous Improvement: A Stepped Care 2.0 Study
The Peer Active Listening (PAL) program trains students to support their peers through active listening and referral, building a network of informal support across both campuses. This year, 94% of PAL participants reported a sense of belonging — one of SWEL’s strongest measurable belonging outcomes. Peerto-peer connection isn’t supplementary; it’s a vital form of care.
Nearly 1 in 3 Humber students identify as South Asian, yet research shows they are less likely to access mental health supports than other student groups. In Winter 2026, the Student Wellness and Equitable Learning team launched a qualitative study exploring how South Asian students experience Humber’s mental health services. As an early leader in evaluating student experiences within a Stepped Care 2.0 framework, Humber is leveraging student insights to enhance service quality, advance health equity, and create conditions that support learner well-being and success.
Our Year In Numbers
1,412
“I felt heard and understood. It was a 13 comfortable and personal conversation. I didn’t feel alone with my struggles”
SYSTEMS CHANGE
Building Capacity: Well-being in Learning Environments Module Created in partnership with the Longo Faculty of Business, Faculty of Health & Life Sciences, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Centre for Innovation and Health & Wellness and Student Wellness and Equitable Learning, the Well-Being in Learning Environments open educational resource equips faculty and staff with tools to foster well-being and inclusion in the classroom environment. In embedding responsive and equitable approaches in the spaces where students come together, we aim to strengthen help-seeking confidence and foster a greater sense of belonging, ultimately enhancing student mental health and well-being.
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Also This Year • Take Back the Night: 170 students engaged in an anti-sexual violence campaign covering consent, survivor support, healthy masculinity, and sexual-violence prevention. • Humber Let’s Talk: 1,200 students explored self-care, stress management, and mental health resources through interactive wellness activities, with 82% reporting they would seek support earlier rather than delay care.
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Looking Ahead
MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
AMPLIFYING WELLNESS IN THE CLASSROOM Building partnerships with faculty to integrate wellness education into learning environments, fostering awareness, connection, and early help-seeking.
Our Mandate
Who We Serve
Mental Health Services (MHS) provides professional, interdisciplinary mental-health support grounded in trauma-informed, evidence-based, and culturally informed practice — supporting students’ personal and academic wellbeing, and contributing to student success, engagement, and retention across the College.
MHS offers low-barrier support to registered Humber and Humber–Guelph learners navigating concerns affecting their mental health, wellbeing, and academic success — most often anxiety and depression, relationship and interpersonal concerns, academic stress, and stress tied to the social determinants of health (food and housing insecurity, financial strain, justice involvement). Services are most accessed by In plain terms: we’re a team of regulated clinical professionals who support students’ students aged 17–24, with a higher proportion mental health at every stage of their journey of women, racialized students, and students — assessing needs and providing evidence- from systemically marginalized communities. based care that helps students stay well Demand peaks in October–November and and succeed. again in January–March. We follow a stepped-care approach – matching the level of support to each student’s needs. From anonymous online peer support, to groups and workshops, to one-to-one counselling and same-day distress intervention. Our services are voluntary, time-limited, and built around the student in front of us — and students in distress are never turned away.
Our Year In Numbers
2,001
94.8%
152
Mental health 1-1 visits attended (1,023 unique students)
Counselling satisfaction rate
Distress interventions – never turned away
534
302
72%
Students reached through outreach
After-hours sessions via CMHA (164 unique)
Of TogetherAll users identify as BIPOC
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YEAR IN REVIEW
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“Students in distress are never turned away.”
Looking Ahead
– Mental Health Team, 2025–26
SERVICE MODEL
MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
Stepped Care, From Anonymous to In-Person
A Team That Holds a Lot
The mental health team delivered 2,001 attended visits to 1,023 unique students MHS support is layered to meet students across a wide range of concerns, from wherever they are. At the lightest touch, TogetherAll offers anonymous, clinician-monitored academic stress and transition to acute crisis — and a 94.8% satisfaction rate peer support and self-guided modules — reflects the relational environment that and the data shows it reaches the un-reached: makes students feel safe enough to come 72% of users identify as BIPOC, and roughly three-quarters were not otherwise engaged with back. Alongside scheduled care, the team responded to 152 distress interventions, on-campus or formal mental health supports. providing timely, same-day support that From there, services scale responsively to helps de-escalate crises and reduce groups and workshops, to one-to-one mental unnecessary emergency-department visits. health supports, and to same-day distress intervention. It is one model, designed so that no one falls through the gaps between levels. AFTER-HOURS
CAMPUS CAPACITY
When the Building Closes
Turning a Budget Limit Into an Asset
Demand for mental-health support doesn’t stop at 5 p.m. Through a partnership with CMHA, MHS extended low-barrier, one-toone support into the after-hours window — delivering 302 sessions to 164 unique students and reaching hundreds more through engagement. The walk-in model worked, and the early feedback was clear: students said the support reduced their need to seek emergency mental-health care.
When external professional-development budgets tightened, the team launched the Mental Health PD Request Form — letting any Humber department draw on MHS expertise directly. Six offerings span Distress Management, Suicide Prevention and Safety Planning, Trauma-Informed Care, Case Consultation, and more, with four requests arriving within days of launch. It mobilizes the knowledge already inside the team, at no added cost, and builds shared capacity across campus.
EQUITY & CONNECTION
Care That Reaches Across Difference MHS met students where stigma and identity intersect — facilitating “Room to Breathe,” a stress-management workshop for Black-identified students with the BSSE office, and standing with faculties and students in the wake of a student’s death. Partnerships with CMHA, TogetherAll, JACS, Family Service Toronto, PCHS, and NEDIC extend the reach of care well beyond what any one team could offer alone.
A FIXED SLATE OF GROUPS AND WORKSHOPS For Fall 2026 and Winter 2027 — CNS-led psychoeducational sessions and counsellor-led therapeutic groups that students can count on.
“ASK A MENTAL HEALTH PROVIDER” OUTREACH CART A roving touchpoint, built with the Health Centre, to reach students who haven’t yet heard of the service.
DEEPER COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS Exploring synergies with community services and engaging Advancement on focused projects.
“I am incredibly thankful for this. This has made me feel so much better. From the start of last week I had felt at such a low point in my life. But after the first consultation I felt alot better. It felt good to have someone there to listen and give help. Now after this one I have been told that I have been making great progress and I feel like I am also. I am in a much better place now because of this and for that I am again incredibly thankful. This service has been the best thing at Humber.” – Student
“My counselor allowed me to vent and afterward, provided solutions to some of my barriers.” – Student
“I really needed this session and the fact that it was very quick to get an appointment with the counselor find it sometimes you may have to wait and sitting with my pain for so long sometimes just has me coping with it myself and not wanting to ever deal with my mental health so this was great.” – Student
“I really appreciate the institution for investing in the health of students as it has helped save their lives.” – Student
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RESIDENCE LIFE AND EDUCATION
Our Mandate
YEAR IN REVIEW
Who We Serve
Residence Life and Education supports learners in their The team serves all learners transition into, through, and out of Humber residence – fostering living in residence — a healthy, inclusive communities and cultivating a strong sense community of over 1,000 of belonging, enjoyment, and harmony. Through programming, students, primarily firststudent-staff development, and community-building, the team years for whom residence is turns residence from a place to sleep into a place to belong. often their first experience of independent living and In plain terms: we provide 24/7 support in residence – belonging at Humber. personalized help, engaging events, and educational Engaging upper-year residents programming that create a safe, inclusive environment remains a deliberate focus where students belong and actually enjoy where they live. for the year ahead. Residence Life is care-focused and face-to-face, every single day. Our live-on-site student and professional staff offer 24/7 support, mentorship, and role-modelling — and respond to high-severity crises on call. Every learner and every case is different; there’s little room for standardization, and that’s the point.
BELONGING
LEADERSHIP PIPELINE
More Than a Place to Sleep: Orientation
Student Staff as a Leadership Pipeline
Orientation is where belonging begins. Fall orientation drew 2,072+ participants — an average of 2.5 events per resident — and a condensed winter orientation re-energized the community for the new term. The outcomes are the story: of students surveyed after winter orientation, 89% felt more connected to other residents and the Humber community, 85% felt more confident managing their personal wellness, and 84% built new skills or confidence to adapt to challenges.
The 47 student staff who worked in Residence Life this year are one of SWEL’s clearest examples of student leadership development in action. Together they held 1,461 intentional conversations with 903 unique residents — checking in, de-escalating, supporting, and referring, an average of 31 conversations each. That 80% chose to return speaks to the quality of the experience and the team’s investment in developing them.
EQUITABLE HIRING
COMPASSIONATE ACCOUNTABILITY
Hiring for Who They’ll Become: A Redesigned Competency Framework
Care That Works: A Restorative Conduct Approach
The team consolidated 13 overlapping staff competencies into 5 focused core competencies — relationship-building, leadership, critical thinking, community programming, and collaboration — then rebuilt hiring around them. A new UDL-informed, AODA-aligned process replaced the traditional formal interview with a 48-hour video submission and an in-person group activity, with current student staff helping facilitate. Effectiveness, the team found, comes from focus, not complexity.
Residence Life’s conduct process is built to teach, not just to sanction — and it works: 85% of learners who go through it do not repeat the behaviour. That low 15% recidivism rate reflects an approach grounded in support and growth, where accountability and care reinforce rather than oppose each other.
Our Year In Numbers
1,000+
1,461
47
Students in the residential community
Intentional conversations by student staff (903 unique)
Student staff developed this year
80%
2,072+
85%
Student staff who chose to return
Fall orientation participants
Of students in the conduct process don’t repeat
PARTNERSHIPS
Partnerships That Extend the Community Residence Gym Nights with Athletics drew an average of 35 participants every Sunday from September through March, while collaborations with Campus Services (1,000+ at open-house tours), Health Promotion (Humber Let’s Talk), and Chartwells (ten $500 bursaries) gave residents more reasons to connect. Orientation partners across Athletics, Career & Student Success, and the LGBTQ+ Resource Centre reached an aggregate of 2,000+ learners.
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“I feel secure and more united with residence people thanks to the RAs that helped me feel that way.”
STUDENT CONNECTION AND COMMUNITY CARE
– Residence Student, 2025–26
Looking Ahead PROACTIVE WELLNESS IN RESIDENCE A STRONGER STAFFING MODEL Updating the professional team structure to add a specialized role, and expanding senior student-staff into more paraprofessional opportunities.
Bringing campus partners directly into the building to meet learners where they already are.
DESIGNING FOR ENGAGEMENT Shaping programming — including more late-evening and weekend events — around what residents actually attend, and re-engaging upper-year students.
Our Mandate
Who We Serve
Student Connection and Community Care (SCCC) helps students navigate challenges and reach their academic and wellbeing goals — connecting them to on- and off-campus resources, resolving conflicts, and guiding them through Humber’s policies and processes. Grounded in care, equity, and belonging, the team works two complementary fronts: Care Coordination and the Office of Student Community Standards.
SCCC serves current Humber and University of Guelph-Humber students at any point in their journey — referred or self-seeking — when challenges affect their wellbeing, behaviour, or ability to succeed, and supports faculty and staff in responding to concerning situations. Care Coordination referrals come most often from students themselves (20%), Clinical Nurse Specialists (16%), faculty (15.6%), and Accessible Learning (10.7%), with the top presenting needs being finances, academics, and mental health.
In plain terms: we help students figure things out when life gets complicated — mental health, money, housing, conflict, or just navigating how Humber works. We connect them to the right supports, help resolve issues, and stick with them so they can keep moving toward their goals.
The team has seen a marked increase in the complexity and overlap of student needs — and growing reliance on SCCC as a central point of navigation.
Much of our work is invisible — behind-the-scenes coordination, advocacy, and careful navigation of complex situations. We work from a “no wrong door” approach: when a student is struggling in a way that affects their ability to succeed, connecting them to us means they’ll be supported in finding the resources and pathways they need.
Our Year In Numbers
491
3,056
204
Students supported by Care Coordinators
Care Coordinator student interactions
Students through Student Community Standards
359
56
48%
Grocery cards distributed
Meal subsidies provided
($22,650)
($21,000)
Of conduct cases resolved restoratively/informally
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YEAR IN REVIEW
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“No case was treated as routine — every student felt seen and supported”
Looking Ahead
– SCCC Team, 2025–26
EQUIPPING CAMPUS LEADERS
FOOD SECURITY
RESTORATIVE PRACTICE
Food Security with Dignity
Restorative by Design
A student who is hungry cannot learn. This year SCCC distributed 359 grocery cards totalling $22,650 and provided 56 meal subsidies worth $21,000 through the Student Food Security Fund — access designed to preserve dignity, without stigma or bureaucratic barriers. Referrals from across Humber enable Care Coordinators to connect students with these supports in partnership with the Food Security Fund, so resources reach the students who need them.
OSCS expanded and clarified its restorative resolution options, adding a resolution package that lays out what to expect and what’s possible — making the Community Standards process more understandable and more meaningful for everyone involved. This year, 48% of conduct cases moved through informal or restorative routes. The work also pushes back on a common misconception: restorative justice isn’t “leniency,” it’s compassionate accountability — consequences that facilitate learning and growth.
PREVENTION
COORDINATED CARE
Hard Conversations, Held with Care: DV/SV Education at Carrier Drive
Coordinated, Accountable, Compassionate
Through a new partnership with Community Outreach Workforce Development, SCCC delivered domestic- and sexual-violence education to trades Pathways learners — many from equity-deserving and justiceinvolved backgrounds — across five sessions reaching roughly 70 participants. What the team found: students are starved for honest conversation about connection and consent, engaged deeply across every group, and asked for the sessions to become a series.
SCCC is a central node in SWEL’s coordinated response to students in complex distress — convening cross-unit support through the CARE team and working hand-in-hand with Public Safety, Residence, and community organizations. Nowhere was this clearer than in supporting students affected by domestic and sexual violence, where coordinated safety planning, housing solutions, and holistic care kept students safe and supported. No student is held by one person alone.
FOUNDATIONS
Formalizing Good Practice: Establishing New Policy as Protection Three new policy documents gave structural clarity to work the team was already doing with care: the CARE Team Terms of Reference, the Non-Academic Leave Policy (SSE 100), and the Student Death Response Policy (SSE 106). Policy here isn’t bureaucracy — it’s protection and consistency, for students and staff alike.
Practical training and knowledgesharing for Associate Deans and others, so students are supported consistently across the institution.
STRENGTHENING RESTORATIVE APPROACHES Developing the process further and expanding the range of resolution options available to students.
DEEPENING THE RESIDENCE LIFE PARTNERSHIP Enhanced training for student staff and more intentional, coordinated support throughout the year.
“There were times when I felt surrounded by total darkness. But from the visits I made to the Student Wellness and Accessibility Centre and from meeting you, [name redacted], and [name redacted], my life has been lightened. The light hasn’t overcome the darkness yet, but I can now see a small pinch of it and that small pinch gives me hope that the darkness will one day fade. Emotionally, I have been doing okay lately, and I am taking things a bit easier now.” – Student
“I wouldn’t have made it to graduation if it wasn’t for you.” – Student
“I just wanted to take a moment to sincerely thank you for everything you’ve done for me over the past few weeks. You went above and beyond to help me through one of the most difficult times I’ve had since arriving in Canada, and I truly appreciate your kindness, patience, and continuous support.” – Student
“Thank you so much for your support and for advocating on my behalf. I truly appreciate your effort during this challenging time.” – Student
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LEARNING IN ACTION
Sector Presence
The Pathways for Learning and Wellbeing is both an organizing document and a philosophical commitment. It articulates what SWEL believes about how students grow — and it shapes how the division designs and delivers every service and program. This year, the framework was further embedded in practice across the portfolio. Curriculum and service design work led by SWEL’s internal capacity continued to align programming with the three domains and the connect, develop, advance learning experience structure.
Well-Being in Learning Environments OER One of the year’s most significant contributions to the sector was the launch of the Well-Being in Learning Environments open educational resource (OER) modules — developed collaboratively between Academic and Student Affairs at Humber. The modules were designed to embed wellbeing literacy into the academic experience, and to make that content freely available to educators across the country. The project brought together colleagues Estefania Toledo, Bindia Darshan, and Jinhee Lee in a model of cross-divisional collaboration that the Pathways for Learning and Wellbeing Framework was designed to enable. There is no such thing as one-way liberation — wellbeing in learning is everyone’s practice. The OER is now publicly available, reflecting SWEL’s commitment to open knowledge and sector generosity.
Published Research: Canadian Journal of Higher Education (CJHE) A peer-reviewed article coauthored by Sterling Crowe and Anna Ghoneim was published in the Canadian Journal of Higher Education (CJHE) in 2025, contributing to the scholarly conversation on student wellness frameworks in the Canadian post-secondary context. This publication positions SWEL’s practice as not only operationally strong but theoretically grounded.
Presence and Engagement
This year, SWEL contributed to seven external presentations across five conferences and panels — sharing our work with colleagues locally, nationally, and internationally. Two consistent threads ran through all of it: the conditions that enable healthy, equitable campus communities, and the leadership practices that make systemic change possible.
STERLING CROWE
Sterling presented at four conferences and panels, speaking to audiences in student affairs, health promotion, and assessment practice. Across these sessions, a shared theme emerged: change that is humancentred, values-aligned, and organizationally sustainable.
JUN 2025
Enabling Joy Through Positive Disruption – CACUSS Conference Enabling Systemic Change Through Service Design – IHPCC, Limerick
AUG 2025
Real Talk: What I Wish I Knew – OISE Panel (Virtual)
FEB 2026
Team & Organizational Dynamics for Change – Dalhousie University (Virtual)
BINDIA DARSHAN
Bindia presented three times – in Ireland, Toronto, and virtually – to audiences spanning more than 400 global delegates at IHPCC and over 200 Ontario postsecondary stakeholders at HEQCO. Her presentations position Humber’s Health Promotion work as a model of upstream, systems-level practice.
JUN 2025
Advancing Student Mental Health: National Standards – IHPCC, Limerick
NOV 2025
Well-Being in Action: Campus Accessibility & Support – HEQCO Conference, Toronto
Co-Creating Caring Classrooms – CICMH Virtual Conference
JENNIFER LIANG
Jennifer participated in a roundtable for CACUSS on conduct, accessibility, and inclusion – a discussion on intersectionality with 55 student affairs colleagues across the country. This appearance reflects SCCC’s growing presence as a voice on equitable student conduct practice at the national level.
FEB 2026
Conduct, Accessibility & Inclusion: Intersectionality Roundtable – CACUSS (Virtual)
Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW)
March 12, 16 & 17, 2026
Internal Engagement & Campus Workshops
SWEL’s presence this year extended well beyond Humber’s campuses. Our team presented at national and international conferences, contributed to sector conversations on health promotion, mental health, and equity, and brought those same commitments inward — developing our own people through workshops, facilitated learning, and professional practice.
SWEL also brought its expertise inward this year — offering professional development for our own team and delivering workshops and presentations to faculty, staff, and students across Humber. The work below reflects SWEL’s role as a campus resource, not just a student-facing service.
Professional Development for SWEL Staff
8
External engagements
500+
Sector colleagues reached
320+
Internal participants
Seven SWEL staff participated in the three-day Instructional Skills Workshop, co-facilitated by Dr. Lisa Endersby and Innovative Learning at Humber’s North Campus. The ISW is an intensive, practice-based professional learning experience where participants reflect on their facilitation skills, practice teaching, and receive meaningful feedback from peers. Participants consistently describe the ISW as formative — and many go on to form informal communities of practice that outlast the three days. Bringing the ISW into SWEL reflects a commitment to growing our people as educators and facilitators, not just service providers.
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Campus Engagement Across SWEL, teams delivered over 320 internal touchpoints through classroom visits, faculty orientations, staff training, and campus-wide workshops. The unit summaries below capture the shape and reach of that work.
Accessible Learning Services
Student Connection and Community Care (SCCC)
Mental Health & Health Promotion
SCCC delivered presentations Mental Health and Health and workshops to student Promotion delivered workshops groups, academic programs, to faculty, staff, and student student staff, and campus groups focused on distress partners throughout the recognition, campus navigation, year — covering community and bystander intervention — standards, the Office of building capacity for Student Community Standards frontline response across (OSCS), sexual violence policy, the institution. bystander intervention, and Sample engagements: group dynamics. Recognize, Respond, Support Sample engagements: Learners in Distress (multiple Sample engagements: Faculty Classroom visits (Bachelor sessions, North and Online); Nursing, CICE, CJS, BHSW, orientation sessions (FHLS, Overview of SWEL Support FLAS, Nursing); ALS Roadshow FMTV); Sexual Violence Policy Services; Bringing in the visits to MHS, SCCC, Athletics, training for Residence student Bystander (Lake Campus). staff; Global Summer School Testing Services, Learning monitors training; Advising Services; UGH Operations Conference presentation; Committee presentation; Thriving at Work workshop on Bringing in the Bystander self-accommodation strategies. workshops. ALS delivered a sustained program of faculty outreach, partner presentations, and internal roadshow sessions across both Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 — introducing the social model of disability, new ALS projects, and academic accommodation practice to faculty, clinical instructors, student staff, and institutional partners.
189
Participants reached
~320
Participants reached
130+
Participants reached
OUR PEOPLE Behind the 28,000+ touchpoints is a team of people who chose this work, and who showed up for it — through a year that was complex, resource-constrained, and demanding. This section is about them. SWEL believes that how we treat our own people is a direct expression of the values we hold for students. Employee engagement and efficacy is one of our SSE priorities and something that we take seriously as a practice of organizational integrity.
SWEL Connect Days: Sensing, Seeing, and Shifting Together This year, SWEL invested in a multi-phase engagement with Dr. Jessica Riddell, built around the Hope Circuits framework — a practical approach to navigating disruption without defaulting to despair or denial. The arc ran across three phases beginning in August 2025: • August 2025 Connect Day: Introduced Hope Circuits as a shared vocabulary for metabolizing disruption. The 10 Conceptual Tools — including systems literacy, slowing down, moving from right answers to good questions, integrity work — became a field guide for the year ahead. • Fall 2025 Senior Leaders Workshop: A deeper engagement with student affairs leaders on the state of post-secondary in Canada: funding precarity, labour strain, public skepticism, and the daily weight
of making decisions inside exhausted systems. The tension named: urgency versus stewardship. • February 2026 Connect Day: The culminating session, themed “Connecting, Alignment, and Stewardship.” Returned to the foundational question: How do we connect and align as stewards of Humber’s purpose, culture, and people? Five key flourishing indicators – observable, qualitative signals of a culture working: • Belly laughter as a signal of connection and psychological safety • Service quality sustained through commitment, even under system strain • Resilience and flourishing held together, not as opposites • Meaningful questions asked openly — a sign people feel safe to wonder aloud • Cross-role dialogue across functions and hierarchies with curiosity, not territorialism
Bring SWEL to Your Team SWEL offers workshops and presentations to departments, classes, and student groups across Humber. Request a session through the Mental Health Team Workshop Request Form or the SWEL Workshop & Presentation Request Form. Mental Health Team Workshop Request Form
SWEL Workshop & Presentation Request Form
“Culture change is not only what we decide. It is what people feel permitted to ask, to name, and to wonder aloud together.” – Connect Day Post-Retreat Report, February 2026
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SWEL Leadership Development Program This year, SWEL launched a structured direct reports, peers, and supervisors — Leadership Development Program for Managers, with individual reports released in March Associate Directors, and Directors — built 2026. A guided debrief and development around the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI planning session followed in person. 360) and aligned with Humber’s forthcoming The program is developmental and Leadership Competency Framework. confidential by design. LPI results are not The LPI measures five Practices of Exemplary used for performance evaluation. The intent Leadership: Model the Way, Inspire a Shared is learning, not judgment — a distinction that Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others matters enormously in a culture trying to build to Act, and Encourage the Heart. safety alongside accountability. The program began in January 2026 with a virtual launch focused on readiness, psychological safety, and shared purpose. Participants completed both self-assessments and 360-degree observer feedback from
A monthly one-hour reflection series runs through summer 2026, with each session anchored in one of the five LPI practices. Peer debrief partnerships support continued dialogue and accountability between sessions.
LPI Program at a Glance Participants: Managers, Associate Directors, and Directors across SWEL January 2026: Program launch — psychological safety and shared purpose February–March 2026: Observer invitations, assessment completion, individual reports March 27, 2026: In-person debrief and development planning April–August 2026: Monthly reflection series (one LPI practice per month) February 2027: Leadership 360+ reassessment Facilitated in partnership with Dr. Rick Ezekiel (Dalhousie University) Aligned with Humber’s Leadership Competency Framework
Skip-Level Engagement SWEL’s Skip-Level Engagement Strategy formalizes something that matters: senior leaders listening directly to team members, not as an audit mechanism, but as a genuine act of curiosity and care. Skip-level conversations happen one to two times per year per team, coordinated with supervisors, and structured around celebrations, challenges, values in action, and future ideas. They are explicitly not performance evaluations, not issueresolution mechanisms, and not bypasses of direct leadership. They are systems-level sense-making spaces.
The strategy reflects a core SWEL belief: we listen at all levels, but act through the right levels. Trust is built in relationships — and the most important relationship for any team member is with their direct supervisor. Skip-levels complement, not replace, that relationship. The strategy includes onboarding resources for both new leaders and new team members, ensuring that everyone who participates in a skip-level conversation understands its purpose, its limits, and its commitments.
RECOGNITION & DISTINCTIONS
2025 SSE Awards – Celebrating the people behind the work This year, SWEL team members were recognized by their peers, their institution, and their sector. Each year, the Student Support and Engagement division recognizes outstanding contributions through peer-nominated awards. In 2025, SWEL team members were honoured in three categories. SSE Synergy/Collaboration Award CARE ROUNDS TEAM – KENDRA-LEE DUPUIS, BURHAN NAVEED, BIANCA SCOTLAND, JEFFREY NOLAN, MONICA VAREY Recognizes outstanding cross-collaboration across SSE departments for a project involving work beyond one’s own unit. The Care Rounds Team exemplified what is possible when colleagues commit to coordinated, compassionate student support across portfolio boundaries. Team Spirit/Team Player Award KEITH MANALO – ACCESSIBLE LEARNING SERVICES Celebrates an individual who lifts others up and ensures their team is set up for success. Keith was recognized for the consistent, generous way he shows up for colleagues and students alike — a quiet but meaningful contributor to the ALS team’s culture. SSE Innovation Catalyst Award DANNIELLE SCIPIO & KHUSHBOO SINGH – ACCESSIBLE LEARNING SERVICES Recognizes a bold, measurable solution with significant impact on SSE goals. Dannielle and Khushboo were honoured for systems changes that removed structural barriers to student access in Accessible Learning Services — work that made the service more responsive, more equitable, and easier for students to navigate.
Individual Distinctions Minister of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security – Award of Excellence in Equality of Opportunity June 2025 DR. STERLING CROWE This provincial award recognizes transformative leaders who have advanced equity and dismantled barriers for historically marginalized students in the postsecondary sector.
Certified Health Executive (CHE) – Canadian College of Health Leaders August 2025 GABRIELLA YEPEZ The CHE designation represents a recognized national standard of expertise, ethical practice, and commitment to lifelong learning in the healthcare sector.
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PARTNERSHIPS & COMMUNITY
HOW WE’RE FUNDED
SWEL does not operate in isolation. The work described in this report is made possible by relationships — with partners inside Humber, across the sector, and in the broader community.
SWEL’s work is made possible through a diverse funding model that draws on student ancillary fees, revenue generated through clinical services, provincial ministry grants, and Humber’s institutional investment. Understanding this model helps explain both the scope of what SWEL can do and the importance of each funding stream.
CMHA/TogetherAll The CMHA/TogetherAll partnership provides students with 24/7 access to a moderated, clinicianmonitored digital mental health platform. This year, the partnership supported over 1,095 student sessions — evidence of sustained student demand for mental health support beyond in-person hours. The partnership is funded through the Mental Health Action Plan (MHAP) grant and reflects SWEL’s commitment to accessible, always-available support.
Work-Integrated Learning
Academic Partnerships
The WIL/ALS Working Committee represents one of the year’s most significant cross-divisional partnerships. By bringing ALS and WIL colleagues together around the shared goal of equitable placement access, the collaboration ensures that work-integrated learning — a cornerstone of polytechnic education — is genuinely available to all students.
The Well-Being in Learning Environments OER was built through genuine cross-divisional collaboration between SWEL and Academic Affairs. The result is a resource that lives in both worlds — student affairs knowledge made accessible in academic settings — and that reflects a shared belief that wellbeing in learning is everyone’s responsibility. SWEL also collaborates with academic programs through the Limerick Framework, which grounds curriculum design in student wellbeing outcomes and supports faculty in integrating wellness literacy into their teaching.
CACUSS and the National Sector As President-Elect of the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services (CACUSS), Sterling Crowe represents SWEL’s commitment to the broader sector. CACUSS is the national professional home for student affairs and services in Canada — and SWEL’s presence in its leadership signals both the quality of the division’s practice and its investment in the field. Sector presentations, the CJHE publication, and the OER launch all contributed to SWEL’s presence as a knowledge-generating, generously-sharing member of the Canadian student affairs community.
FUNDING SOURCE
F26 ACTUAL
% OF TOTAL
Ancillary fees (student health, safety & residence fees)
~$3.93M
~$1.42M
18.6%
Ministry grants (accessibility & mental health)
~$1.43M
18.8%
~$843K ~$7.62M
11.1% 100%
Revenue generation (Health Centre medical billing) Humber institutional contribution Total
51.6%
Ancillary Fees: Students Investing in Themselves
Revenue Generation: Clinical Services Sustaining Themselves
The largest single funding stream — just over half of SWEL’s total budget — comes from student ancillary fees: the health and wellness service fees, campus safety and sexual violence prevention fees, and the residence and housing chargeback that funds Residence Life and Education. These fees represent students’ collective investment in a wellness infrastructure they share.
Approximately 18.6% of SWEL’s funding is generated through the Health Centre’s fee-for-service billing model. Physician care, psychiatry, and registered dietitian services are billed through OHIP and insurance, generating revenue that directly funds clinical capacity. This model makes the Health Centre one of the more selfsustaining campus clinical operations in the province.
Ministry Grants: Targeted Investment in Access and Mental Health
Humber’s Institutional Contribution
Provincial ministry funding supports two distinct areas of SWEL’s work. Accessibility funding through the Accessibility Fund for Students with Disabilities (AFSD, ~$1.04M) and the Support for Apprentices with Disabilities (SAWD, ~$95K) funds the ALS team’s work with students with disabilities. Mental health funding through the MH Services Fund (~$142K), Mental Health Workers Grant (~$100K), and MHAP Grant (~$53K) sustains capacity and community mental health programming.
Humber’s direct institutional investment of approximately $843K — about 11% of total spend — funds departmental infrastructure, leadership, and the General Operating supports that hold the portfolio together. This contribution reflects the institution’s commitment to student wellness as a strategic priority, not merely an ancillary service.
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LOOKING AHEAD The work of 2025–2026 was built on a clear foundation: a curricular framework that organizes our purpose, a team that held its values through a demanding year, and a growing body of evidence that the services SWEL provides make a measurable difference in student lives. As we move into 2026–2027, several priorities shape the road ahead: • Equitable Learning Environments Policy: The new academic accommodations policy, years in development and grounded in the Ontario Human Rights Code and the social model of disability, is expected to be finalized and published this academic year. Its implementation will require sustained attention, staff development, and cross-institutional partnership.
• Workforce Realignment: Structural changes across the portfolio — Health Promotion, Student Connection and Community Care in partnership with Residence Life and Education, as well as the Front Desk Assistant model in Clinical Services — will be fully implemented and integrated in the coming year.
• Accommodate Software Transition: The transition from ClockWork to Accommodate — a major technology infrastructure shift for ALS — is underway and will reshape how accommodations are documented, communicated, and tracked across the institution.
• CACUSS National Leadership: With Sterling Crowe’s transition to CACUSS President, SWEL’s presence in the national student affairs conversation deepens. The opportunity to contribute to sector-wide conversations about upstream wellbeing, curricular frameworks, and equitable practice is one the division is well-positioned to take up.
• Leadership Development Cycle: The LPI reflection series continues through summer 2026, with peer debrief partnerships and a 360+ reassessment planned for February 2027. This is the first full cycle of a program designed to be ongoing, cumulative, and culture-shaping.
• Sustained Sector Contribution: The OER, the CJHE publication, and sector presentations in 2025–2026 are the beginning of a pattern, not a one-time effort. SWEL will continue to share its work openly, learn from peers, and contribute to a sector that is navigating the same disruptions we are.
“The work ahead is the same as the work behind: showing up, with care, for the people in front of us — and building the conditions that make that possible.” – Student Wellness and Equitable Learning, 2025–2026
CONNECT WITH US NORTH CAMPUS 2nd Floor, Learning Resource Commons 205 Humber College Blvd. Toronto, ON M9W 5L7 T: 416.675.5090 E: swel@humber.ca
LAKESHORE & DOWNTOWN CAMPUS 2nd Floor, Humber Student Welcome and Resource Centre 2 Colonel Samuel Smith Drive Etobicoke, ON M8V 4B6 T: 416.675.6622 ext. 3331 E: swel@humber.ca