While UBC has counselling services, Access and Diversity and other services for health and well-being, there is nothing specifically for students suffering with addiction or alcoholism issues.
“I think a lot of students just go to traditional services that are housed in the university and navigate those,” said VP Academic, Jenna Omassi. “Besides that, there’s not targeted services for addiction.”
According to Cheryl Washburn, Director of Counselling Services, counselling services may or may not refer students off campus depending on the severity of a student's issue with substances.
"For the more extreme kinds of substance abuse issues we may ... refer to a residential program," said Washburn.
In a recent AMS council meeting, Tracey Gaydosh, fourth year studying Gender, Race, Sexual and Social Justice, presented one possible service as a way to fill what Omassi calls “a gap that exists.”
“AMS Vice is a student service that we want to get started through the AMS specifically surrounding drugs and alcohol and how we can help students who have problems with these,” said Gaydosh. “Not necessarily addictions, but problems.”
The service would be run by three student volunteers as coordinators and one student staff overseeing the service. The service could be best termed as a peer-support network whose focus would be mainly on education.
“Too many times I’ve talked to students and I’m like, 'Hey, did you know that could happen if you did that?' And they’re like, 'No,'” said Gaydosh. “Not saying that alcohol and drugs shouldn’t be done -- that’s a personal decision, it’s all up to you -- but if you have information … that’s going to possibly change your decision. Right now, there’s no information.”
Gaydosh has been working with Ron Gorodetsky, Student Services Manager of the AMS, to advance the idea further. Gorodetsky agrees that the service should exist and the AMS should fund an assistant coordinator position.
“I think the only thing that could potentially make it not viable is if there are any insurance concerns," said Gorodetsky. “[There are] limitations in what we can and cannot do. We just have to make sure that peer-lead, group [and] ongoing support sessions are within our insurance parameters."
AMS Vice volunteers would have similar credentials to the volunteers of AMS Speakeasy, the peer support counselling organization funded by the AMS -- but Vice would offer what Speakeasy doesn't in terms of continuing group support.
“We first identified Vice as an opportunity to create a brand new service alongside Speakeasy,” said Gorodetsky. “[But] the more we thought about it, the more we figured that actually might be a good… opportunity to actually collaborate and work with Speakeasy.”
Right now, the idea is very much in its preliminary stages. Discussion around filling the gap in resources with this service began very recently and is currently being considered by relevant campus stakeholders.
“This was the step one proposal to Council to see if it was even something that the AMS had an appetite for,” said Omassi. “It seemed from Council there was really a desire to go forward and look into it a lot more.”
According to Omassi, there will be more discussions with the university and campus community into October and November where there will likely be a more detailed budget and breakdown as a result.