The GenWell Challenge: Promoting Social Health Through Experiential Learning in Universities

Young adults are at risk for social disconnection, and the severity of this unfortunate reality has been compounded by a decade’s-long trend toward worsening social health. There is, therefore, an urgent need for strategies that will effectively promote social health. To this end, researchers at the University of Toronto, in collaboration with the GenWell Project, propose a project that underpin a social health pilot program that leverages the strengths of experiential learning. In the proposed experiential learning assignment, which will be piloted within a large introductory psychology course, students will collaboratively develop and share social health promotion messages. We expect that this program will serve two distinct purposes: First, the messages shared will advance the discourse around the importance of social health and strategies for improving it, and second, the experience of creating effective social health messaging will help students to internalize the value of social health, along with strategies for strengthening it. The work proposed for this project will lay a strong foundation for an impactful social health learning experience, for the research infrastructure that will measure its effectiveness, and for the eventual wide roll-out of this program to post-secondary institutions across Canada.

Faculty Supervisor:

Steve Joordens

Student:

Partner:

The GenWell Project

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Other services (except public administration)

University:

University of Toronto

Program: