The Student Health Education Centre at McMaster is one of many groups on campus attempting to destigmatize reaching out for sexual health resources
Sexual health was defined by the World Health Organization as overall well-being correlated with sexuality, ensuring a person feels that their needs are maintained. Furthermore, they indicated that sexual health isn’t simply limited to medical well-being, it includes the ability to be able to access the resources necessary to maintain these.
A paper by a group of researchers in Halifax found that some undergraduate students in Nova Scotia felt as though resources were scarce which discouraged them from seeking out.
The Student Health Education Centre at McMaster University, located in McMaster Union Student Centre, works to connect students with health resources on campus. Sheridan Fong, service director of SHEC, shared that their service offers a variety of free resources for students.
“We offer confidential peer support, as well as health resources on several subjects, such as sexual health. We also offer safer sex supplies, which is one of the main ways that we interact with students. We have our health dispensers that are free and located on the second floor of MUSC,” said Fong.
The health supplies they offer include but are not limited to, safe(r) sex supplies, pregnancy tests and menstrual products. The group has existed at McMaster for many years, known as the Birth Control Center in 1971. From that point in time they’ve expanded what they offer. Fong shares that the changes are meant to align with the inclusivity associated with sex.
“Over the years, we have expanded our product range. Just to become more inclusive of what sex means to different individuals, I would say. So we've gone from just giving out male condoms to also offering female condoms, as well as dental dams. Just understanding that the idea of sex can mean something very different for many people,” said Fong.
Stigma is something that is often associated with seeking out resources that may increase a person's sexual health. The stigmatization of this resource is something SHEC tries to actively overcome. This has caused them to introduce initiatives that pressure associated with seeking resources. This includes their dispenser on campus being open 24 hours seven days a week. Many of the other safe(r) sex options mentioned previously can be accessed Monday to Friday from 9:30 AM to 5:25 PM.
Fong shared that there is an understanding at SHEC that for some hesitantly seeking out their resources, anonymity can be beneficial. This sparked the implementation of an online ordering system. This resource allows students to check off the supplies they need in a form and pick them up discretely.
Though there is a stigma around sexual health, Fong hopes that some of their initiatives address the embarrassment or shame some feel around accessing these supplies.
Fong highlighted their Halloween event which handed out supplies similarly to Halloween candy. She believes that facilitating light and playful initiatives with sexual health resources can work to lessen stigma. Fong stated that SHEC plans to carry out a similar initiative for Valentine’s Day.
Funding for SHEC's initiative to add additional dispensers at the Mary E. Keyes service desk and Commons Building service desk was put to a vote in the Student Life Enhancement Fund. Fong commented on this, stating that one of the best ways to destigmatize services like SHEC is by actively funding their on-campus student outreach.
“Seeing like the Student Life Enhancement Fund, literally putting forth our project for a vote shows that they are supportive of this and this is like a university-wide support. I just think like backing projects like this with funding or like help elevating them to be put in like the student public eye really just shows their support,” said Fong.
Having resources provided to students on campus can encourage utilizing the resources around them. Acknowledging and uplifting resources in the McMaster community, such as SHEC, are important in the goal of destigmatizing sexual health.
Sarah O’Connor
Staff Reporter
From Feb. 10 – 14 the Student Health Education Centre ran its first ever SHEC Week, a week dedicated to promoting healthy lifestyles for university students. SHEC is offering a wide variety of events for students to participate in and learn something new.
“It’s just a great way to promote our services and do things we’ve never done before,” Kelsey O’Neill, SHEC Coordinator, commented on SHEC Week. “This is the first time it’s been done in our history of being SHEC.”
O’Neill reveals that SHEC Week was SHEC Training Chair executive Tina Cody’s idea. Cody said SHEC Week drew inspiration from the annual Pride Week and thanked Jyssika Russell and the QSCC for their inspiration and dedication.
She hopes that SHEC Week will also work to tackle different stigmas and perspectives on health by providing students with what they believe are most valuable to students.
“What I really wanted to do with SHEC week was… tackle a variety of problems that students face in their daily lives through informative and fun activities,” Cody explained.
“I really want SHEC Week to educate McMaster students with how they can lead a healthy lifestyle through easy and manageable steps.”
Laura Jamieson, Internal Programming executive and next year’s coordinator hopes that SHEC Week will help students learn the importance of health and happiness in their lives.
“I hope that SHEC Week is going to be an opportunity for people to think about and talk about certain things in their own health and their own happiness as students and how to really make that a priority in their lives,” she said.
O’Neill, Cody, and Jamieson all agree that SHEC Week is a great opportunity for SHEC to showcase and make sure students are aware of the many different services SHEC has to offer, as well as recognizing that the events being offered during SHEC Week are valuable to students.
“I know that I would have benefited from these events so much during points in my life throughout university,” Cody admits, not having been an active member of SHEC until more recently.
“I think that… first year when it’s so difficult transitioning… students can attend these events and learn new things or what might be beneficial for them as an individual,” she continued.
SHEC Week is offering a number of ways for students to get involved having a variety of activities including meditation, a movie night, free candy, a relationships roundtable, as well as workshops on busy lives and body image. With the numerous events O’Neill, Cody, Jamieson and all of SHEC’s volunterrs hope for a successful SHEC Week and hope to add more events for next year.
“I think it will most likely be done next year because [Laura Jamieson] is coming back as coordinator, so I would imagine it would continue,” O’Neill said.
She continued, “We’d listen to student’s feedback and try getting an event that we haven’t had before, like the relationship counselor.”
Jamieson said she would like to have more events directed at first year students to make transitioning easier. “I hope to…reach out to first years, doing more outreach with them because they…can get cut off in their little demographic so I’d like to be trying to reach out to them more…the first years are important to me and I think that would be my number one for sure.”
SHEC is an MSU service best known on campus for providing a variety of contraceptive products and anonymous pregnancy testing. But what many Mac students don’t know is that SHEC offers many other resources, not solely related to sexual health. Services like confidential peer support, numerous health pamphlets, a lending library available to students and the community at large, and a huge knowledge of on and off campus referrals are some of the lesser-known support SHEC offers at McMaster.
Located on the second floor of the student centre, room 202, SHEC is open 9:30 a.m. – 6:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and until 4:30 p.m. on Friday. SHEC is run by the coordinator, a small group of executives and a few dozen volunteers, all of whom undergo a weekend of training each term, as well as additional monthly training.
