UMass Lowell’s Office of Student Life & Well-being is a new office launched in November of 2021. Our office was created to further our Division of Academic and Student Affairs holistic concept for student success by infusing health promoting actions and collaborations into campus culture.

One of the first programs created to infuse health promotion into campus culture was our college-based well-being leader program. We were able to secure funding to hire 2 well-being leaders for each of our 5 academic colleges. These students are trained in peer support, campus resources, and the 8 dimensions of wellness. They each work 4 hours per week holding office hours for peer support in each of their respective colleges. In addition to that, they help to promote well-being on campus by writing of our well-being blog and hosting one program per semester in their academic college.

This presentation will walk participants through the entire process of implementing this program from our initial proposal to securing funding, developing training, hiring, managing, and evaluating the program throughout our entire first year. In addition, we will break down the strengths and challenges of our program implementation and provide participants with a guide for implementing a similar program on their own campus.

This program was developed based on the evidence-based notion that students in distress often turn to their peers for support (Morse & Schulze, 2013), along with understanding our unique population of students’ needs and how they span across the 8 dimensions of wellness.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand the process of implementing a college-based peer education initiative focused on health promotion and well-being.
• Evaluate the strengths and challenges of implementing a brand new peer education initiative.
• Leave with tangible resources to implement a similar program on your campus. 

Plus earn CSAEd CE Credit.

Guidelines for earning CSAEd credit: 

1 CSAEd Core CE will be awarded for completing this course. Completion includes watching the recording and completing the Feedback Survey. 

No partial credit will be awarded; full completion is required. 

Participants must also complete the feedback survey in the Online Learning Community.

Credit is only available for attending the live session.

To receive CSAEd credit, attendees must complete the Feedback Survey in the online event offering the certification. Once the survey is completed, your Certificate will be available in the event modules. The Certificate of Completion, which will show the event and credit earnings, is available for download and/or print from the event in your Online Learning Community.

NASPA has been approved by the Higher Education Consortium for Student Affairs Certification to provide CE credit for Certified Student Affairs Educators (CSAEd). NASPA is solely responsible for all aspects of this program.