About Wellness Services

A thriving campus community, where health and well-being are integrated into all aspects of the Boise State experience—empowering students, faculty and staff to prioritize well-being.

We strive to make health and well-being an integral part of the Boise State experience through a multifaceted prevention approach that includes personalized education, comprehensive resource sharing, campus-wide initiatives, impactful organizational practices and policy advocacy.

Values:Guiding principles and fundamental beliefs that help us work toward our common goals.

Well-being: The core of our work is a commitment to holistic well-being. We cultivate this by adopting a public health perspective and nurturing a team culture prioritizing balance, joy, play and respect for boundaries.

Collaborative: We aim to foster a collaborative culture of teamwork through exchanging data and ideas, and engaging with diverse stakeholders to achieve common goals.

Courage: Courage is our commitment to doing the right thing, asking hard questions, trying new things, pushing the status quo and refraining from shaming.

Community: Community is our commitment to creating brave and inclusive spaces that prioritize a person-first approach, foster wholeheartedness and embrace authentic connections.

We are committed to establishing a robust prevention strategy, guided by the Spectrum of Prevention Framework. This systematic tool facilitates the identification and implementation of a comprehensive approach to prevention.

The Spectrum of Prevention is instrumental in steering us away from the notion that prevention is solely confined to education. Instead, it presents a multifaceted range of activities across six distinct levels, as outlined in the table below. These levels are not standalone; they complement each other, fostering a synergistic effect that enhances overall effectiveness. By leveraging activities at each level, we can pinpoint the most crucial actions aligned with our prevention objectives ensuring a holistic and interconnected approach to prevention.

• Influencing Policy and Legislation
• Changing Organizational Practices
• Fostering Coalitions and Networks
• Educating Providers
• Promoting Community Education
• Strengthening Individual Knowledge and Skills

Pillar 1: Wellness Education and Outreach Individual and Community Knowledge, Skill and Awareness

Objective 1: Develop and implement educational awareness programs on campus to highlight support services.

Objective 2: Provide comprehensive and evidence-based wellness workshops and outreach education to the campus community.

Objective 3: Implement an active and comprehensive communication and marketing plan to enhance our brand.

Objective 4: Embed a commitment to prevention through data-driven and evidence-based public health principles across all projects and initiatives

Pillar 2: Influencing Policy, Organizational Practices and Environments

Objective 1: Advocate for and implement policies that support systemic change to improve the well-being of all campus members.

Objective 2: Implementing changes in campus environments to support well-being. (i.e. condom dispensers, Naloxone boxes, 9-8-8 signage updates, etc.).

Pillar 3: Fostering Coalitions, Networks, and Educating Providers

Objective 1: Convening on-campus groups and individuals for broader goals and greater impact within our focus topic areas.

Objective 2: Informing educational and clinical providers who will transmit skills and knowledge to others.

Objective 3: Strengthen partnerships with state agencies and national coalitions for
maximum impact.

Pillar 4: Student Involvement and Leadership Development

Objective 1: Expand evidence-based peer education programming.

Objective 2: Enhance and execute a comprehensive employee life cycle plan (hiring, onboarding, training, mentoring and continued development) tailored for undergraduate and graduate assistants.

Objective 3: Provide opportunities for professional development through conferences, continuing education, and in-house training.

KPI’s and Evaluation Metrics for Each Pillar

The physical well-being content area focuses on movement, food and nutrition, weight stigma and body neutrality. Our first objective is to elevate food literacy, aiming to empower individuals with a comprehensive understanding of nutrition. Secondly, we strive to create a weight-inclusive campus where students find enjoyable and safe ways to move their bodies.

Movement:

• Decrease the proportion of students who report no moderate or vigorous activity using multiple individual and population-level strategies.
• Develop campus-wide messaging that links mental health and movement.
• Decrease the gap in the percentage of transgender and gender non-conforming
  students who meet recommended activity guidelines compared to other groups.

Food and Nutrition:

• Increase food literacy through cooking classes, cooking demonstrations and individual consultation.
• Reduce the percentage of students experiencing food insecurity through educational campaigns promoting awareness and utilization of the Campus Food Pantry.
• Increase the percentage of students eating fruits and vegetables.

Weight Stigma and Body Neutrality:

• Improve the culture of body acceptance on campus through large initiatives, staff training and individual work groups.
• Decrease the percentage of students reporting they had a problem or challenge with personal appearance.
• Decrease the percentage of students reporting personal appearance having a negative impact on academic performance.
• Develop campus policies and practices that create weight-inclusive spaces.
• Develop and implement an eating disorder consultation team and referral.

The alcohol, tobacco and other drug content area focuses on the prevention of harms associated with the use and misuse of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs on campus.
Objectives include promoting safer use of substances, increasing AOD literacy, leveraging partnerships on and off campus to create a safer community and preventing deaths due to overdose. Values of efforts in this area include respect for persons, harm reduction and working in close collaboration with on and off-campus partners.

Alcohol:

• Develop campus-wide messaging that corrects the misperceptions of social norms around alcohol and educates on safer drinking strategies.
• Raise campus awareness surrounding the Broncos Act Policy through posters, social media posts, tabling, and swag.
• Execute prevention to reach high risk drinking populations with harm reduction messaging (Athletics, FSL, and first-year students).
• Develop presentations and workshops aimed at low/no-use populations to increase alcohol literacy.
• Screen students for alcohol use disorder, and deploy ScreenU tool (2,000+ students per year).
• Reduce the percentage of students who report having 5 or more drinks the last time they drank in a social setting.

Tobacco:

• Reduce the percentage of students who report using nicotine or tobacco products in the last three months.
• Screen students for nicotine and tobacco use.
• Provide nicotine and tobacco cessation resources to students.
• Support and promote enforcement of tobacco-free campus policies.

Cannabis:

• Reduce the percentage of students who report using cannabis products.
• Reduce the percentage of students with high-risk use of cannabis.
• Develop campus-wide messaging that educates on the harms of cannabis use including dependence, mental health issues and sleep
• Reduce the percentage of students who report driving within six hours of cannabis use.
• Screen students for cannabis use disorder, and deploy ScreenU tool.

Overdose Prevention:

• Promote prescription lock boxes; safe use and disposal of prescriptions.
• Plan, implement and evaluate opioid overdose response on the Boise State Campus
• Create recovery allies training to raise campus readiness for a collegiate recovery program on campus.

The sexual wellness content area focuses on taking a holistic approach to educating about sexual health and healthy relationships. By including topics like pleasure and intimacy in addition to our education around STIs and abuse prevention, we achieve a balanced approach that prepares young people to make safer choices and be empowered to advocate for the fun and positive aspects of healthy sexuality. As much as possible, we will refer to and educate on the societal or cultural influences that facilitate sexual assault or low-barrier method compliance. Our activities and methods aim to build positive social norms that promote healthy relationships, consent and sexual health.

Sexual Health (STIs, Pregnancy Prevention, Pleasure)

• Distribute 12,000 condoms to dispensers in key campus locations (residence halls, public dispensers, and food pantry).
• Create an STI Testing agreement for on-site self-collection STI tests at low or no-cost for wellness events.
• Increase the percentage of students indicating using barrier methods “most of the time” or “always” during sexual activity.

Healthy Relationships

• Maintain use of HPV screening tool within UHS during every medical visit, regardless of the patient’s gender.
• Decrease the percentage of students indicating problems or challenges in the last 12 months due to “intimate relationships” (Spring 2023 total is 8.9% and 16.7% for transgender and gender non-conforming students).
• Conduct the Broncos Take Action workshop with FSL and Athletics at least three times per year.

LGBTQ+ Health and Well-Being

• Conduct an assessment of University Health Services LGBTQIA+ friendliness as outlined in ACHA’s Implementation Guide for Sexual Health Best Practices in College Settings.
• Decrease the percentage of students reporting they had a problem or challenge in the last 12 months due to microaggressions (Spr 2023 at 10% for transgender and gender nonconforming students).
• Develop and implement a sexual health workgroup.

The mental health and life skills program is dedicated to fostering positive mental health, enhancing essential life skills and implementing comprehensive suicide prevention strategies. Our first objective is to equip campus community members with the knowledge, skills and resources to navigate life’s challenges effectively. Secondly, we
aim to cultivate a supportive campus culture that prioritizes mental well-being as fundamental to overall health and student success. This is achieved through awareness campaigns, interactive skill-building workshops and by encouraging the use of accessible support services.

Awareness of Resources

• Increase the visibility of mental health services through targeted marketing campaigns.
• Collaborate with academic departments to integrate mental health education into the curriculum.
• Establish peer-led initiatives that encourage students to share information and experiences related to mental health resources.
• Collaborate with student organizations and leaders to spread awareness about and encourage utilization of campus mental health resources.

Promotion of Life Skills

• Foster collaborations between academic departments and student services to embed life skills education into academic and extracurricular activities.
• Leverage digital platforms and resources to provide flexible access to life skills education.
• Implement assessment tools and feedback mechanisms to evaluate the effectiveness of life skills education programs.

Suicide Prevention

• Increase mental health literacy across the campus by integrating information about
  suicide risk factors, warning signs and appropriate response strategies into existing mental health education initiatives.
• Implement regular training sessions for gatekeepers, which include Housing and Residence Life, faculty, staff and student leaders, on how to identify and respond to students in distress.
• Ensure that information about crisis resources, including crisis hotlines and campus emergency services, is highly visible and easily accessible across the campus.
• Work towards policy and environmental changes that promote mental well-being and suicide prevention, such as reducing academic pressure and creating more welcoming environments.