Western University students are promoting wellness across campus through a new peer-based pilot program that delivers microdoses of self-care and social connection.
Launched by Western Student Experience at the start of the 2025-26 academic year and supported by the Parr Centre for Thriving, the Peer 2 Peer (P2P) Wellness Leader Program engages students as peer leaders to host class presentations, booths at campus events and creative workshops.
“The peer leaders meet busy students where they’re at,” said Anna Lise Trudell, Western’s manager of wellness and equity education. “Students don’t always have the bandwidth for intensive sessions. Rather than having them come to us, we go to where they are already at.”
University students face multiple pressures to excel in school, plan their academic and career pathways, manage their growing relationship networks and grow their independence and responsibility. Research shows that wellness programming can help university students perform well in their classes while managing stress from school, finances, politics and life.
Often piggy-backing on the first few minutes of an existing lecture, the “microskills” sessions run by peer leaders highlight bite-sized tips to promote rest and recovery, stress management, movement, nutrition, mindfulness and harm reduction, including safer use of substances and screens. Since September 2025, the program’s 17 volunteer peers have connected with 6,000 of their fellow undergrads through these sessions. Event booths and residence workshops have reached at least 5,000 attendees across 32 engagements over the year.
“The idea is to sprinkle digestible doses of wellness information throughout each academic year, building into a scaffold of support over the course of an undergraduate degree,” Trudell said.
The P2P Wellness Leader Program enhances other wellness supports offered through Western, ranging from financial services counselling and crisis support to wellness education, Equity Diversity Inclusion information and spiritual wellness.
Self-care without the stress
Shveta Suresh, lead for the P2P Wellness Leader Program’s campus engagement activities, organizes and oversees residence workshops and booths at campus events. Suresh hopes that by creating community experiences, the program can reframe the vague-yet-daunting expectations of “wellness culture.”
“What does wellness even mean? Self-care sounds like something on a student’s to-do list,” she said. “It sounds like we should be going to the gym and eating super healthy and never looking at our phones. It sounds hard.”
But carving out half an hour to paint or colour feels achievable. Plus, Suresh adds, “these events usually have food.”
Suresh’s work earns her a modest honorarium. It also feeds her own drive for connection. During her undergrad years at Western as a psychology major, Shveta volunteered for the Peer Support Centre at Western. She’s now in her first year of a master’s in neuroscience.
“I’ve always been interested in mental health,” Suresh said. “I’ve learned a lot about the value of being available to provide a listening ear.”
Social connection, creative activities teach self-care
From visual art to microskills presentations and event booths, the P2P Wellness team creates and leverages multiple opportunities to help students build social connection and expand their range of self-care tools. For students caught up in overwhelm, informal gatherings are more than a channel for wellness information. By making social connections, attendees are actively participating in self-care.
“Low-barrier creative activities offer a low-pressure way for students to connect socially with something fun and not too intense.” – Anna Lise Trudell, manager of wellness and equity education
A “Colour and Connect” event, held during International Week in November, gave students the opportunity to colour and talk about culture and wellness. Events in three residence buildings engaged students in potting and painting activities. As participants potted succulents and painted the pots, peer leaders checked in, weaving in gentle reminders that minds and bodies need care – just like their plant subjects.
Suresh said university students, particularly during their first-year, can experience feelings of loneliness and isolation.
“Even though you’re surrounded by peers, it’s very, very easy to just go onto your phone and isolate yourself,” she said.
Students pot succulent plants and decorate the pots during a support event led by the Peer 2 Peer Wellness Program at Western. (Western Student Experience)
While stress and exams intensify this isolation, “coming into a space where everyone’s focused on a calm, creative project can really help,” Suresh added.
“While everyone is colouring, our volunteers check in, like ‘hey, how are exams going?’”
Every event is evaluated, with volunteers assessing attendance and estimating how many students contacts were made. Furthermore, connection and evaluation go both ways: “We also engage students directly to ask what they think we should focus on,” Suresh said.
A shared responsibility
By breaking down barriers for students, the P2P Wellness Leader Program fosters a shared commitment to balance. Through gentle nudges, the program positions participants to build healthy habits over time – starting with the habit of checking in with themselves.
Staff and peer leads plan to develop more strategies and initiatives.
“The program is still at an early stage, but we have a significant opportunity to bring this message and these skills across campus,” said Trudell.
“I really believe in the ability of the this program to drive sustainable long-term impact for student mental health and wellness.”
To learn more or book a microskill session, contact wellness.edu@uwo.ca.
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