Enver Creek Secondary Wellness Fair builds community connections

As schools and institutions across the country recognized Mental Health Week last week, Enver Creek Secondary was buzzing with activity as students and community partners came together for the school’s third annual Wellness Fair.

The brainchild of school counsellor Kelly Janda, the Wellness Fair was created to raise student awareness of the many community resources available to support mental health, wellness, community safety and more.

According to Janda, the idea for the fair came to her shortly after she arrived at Enver Creek three years ago.

“Our school is located in a very residential area, so there aren’t necessarily a lot of community hubs or centres within walking distance,” she recalled. “So the thought was, ‘Why don’t we bring our community partners in so that our students can make those community connections?’”

This year's fair saw 26 community partners take part, including the City of Surrey, Surrey Police Service, Crime Stoppers, FamilySmart and Emotions BC. The event also expanded to include schoolwide workshops for all classes, with presentations being held on topics such as online safety, substances use awareness and healthy relationships.

Lauryn Rees, Programs Coordinator with Emotions BC, said events like the Enver Creek Wellness Fair are a great opportunity to reduce barriers. While the organization strives to be as low-barrier as possible, there’s still the awareness factor, which is why the fair is so important.

“There’s always people that need help processing certain emotions, but they just might not know where to start, so that’s what we’re here to do,” she said.

A 2020 graduate of École Salish Secondary, Rees said she has seen a steady increase in schools working to raise awareness and remove stigma around discussions of mental health and wellness among youth.
 
 “When I was in high school emotions weren’t really talked about, but we’ve seen so much progress made in recent years to have events like this and it’s just really cool to see it being normalized,” she said.