Island Health Grant To Help NIC Trades Students Handle Pain And Stress Management

A grant from Island Health will help support North Island College trades students this fall.

The programming will build on other recent Building Healthy Trades initiatives but with more focus on pain and stress management for the students.

It is being funded by Island Health’s 2024 Resilience & Safety Grant, worth $50,000. NIC’s Student Life department is one of 22 recipients of the grant.

The work this fall that the grant supports will focus on giving students a better understanding of how to handle and alleviate stress or physical pain.

Key aims of the project include hosting education sessions that teach healthy and effective strategies for managing pain and stress; subsidized access to community fitness centres, pools and sports activities; and on-campus access to pain and stress management supports.

In the midst of a provincial toxic drug epidemic, NIC says workers in the trades can be vulnerable both to work-related injuries that need pain management as well as stress from time and other demands that do not always make seeking treatment easy.

“As the toxic drug crisis continues to deeply affect communities in our region and beyond, providing people with the tools to safely manage workplace injuries and stressors is imperative to reduce harms and save lives,” said Julie Lajeunesse, Island Health executive director, Addiction Medicine and Substance Use.

“North Island College is delivering important training to future trades workers, and Island Health is proud to provide support through grant funding for the Building Healthy Trades initiatives.”

So far, initiatives have included information-sharing about mental health issues, building relationships with students and meetings on each campus about the culture of the trades, even social events—not always easy for trades students who typically are on different schedules for being on campus.

Any trades student interested in the program can contact healthytrades@nic.bc.ca.

For details, visit North Island College.