"If we're not full, what do we have left to give?"
That was one of the key takeaways from a Community Mental Health Symposium for Practical Nursing students, hosted at the Student Life Centre at St. Clair College on Nov. 4 and 7, 2025.
Tazdia Kemeny, a professor of Practical Nursing at St. Clair, organized the event to provide students with strategies for treating patients through a mental health lens, while also taking care of themselves while on the job.
"This is an eye-opening event that connects the practical nursing students with our community partners so their eyes are open to what resources are available regarding mental health, and what would be their role as a nurse," said Kemeny. "A lot of times they don't get that exposure to these community resources from the lens of mental health, so instead of us taking them to the community, we're bringing the community to them."
Community partners, including representatives from Windsor Regional Hospital, Hotel Dieu Grace Healthcare, the Canadian Mental Health Association, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, and the Windsor-Essex Counter Exploitation Network, attended the symposium and delivered presentations to the students over two days.
"We can be vulnerable to having some mental health concerns and we need to be very real with that," said Sonia McMahon-Comartin, a mental health educator with CMHA Windsor-Essex County Branch. "As caregivers, as healthcare providers, they'll want and actually need to do their best to be very intentional to keep themselves well."
Students engaged in exercises and learned how to maintain resilience, be authentic and practice self-care, as well as knowing there are people and services available to support caregivers.
"When we are naturally caregivers, we can think maybe it's selfish to take a step back, but that's not the case at all," McMahon-Comartin said. "I called on them to invest in themselves. Take that time and recognize when you're overloaded, and step back in order to keep well, because we do have to keep well to be able to support others effectively."
Hadiseh Ghadimi, a second-year Practical Nursing student, said it was an informative day of learning about strategies, as well as opportunities within the nursing profession.
"It was very interesting about what is going on out there, because mental health is a very big thing," Ghadimi said. "I now understand there are lots of branches of mental health, and there are a lot of diverse ways nursing can contribute towards it."
Brandon Boundy is a travel nurse and Registered Practical Nurse at Chatham-Kent Health Alliance. He told students about the possibilities within the travel nurse profession, who typically deliver services in remote or underserviced regions and Indigenous communities where the need is great, as is the opportunity to provide care.
"Some northern communities rely on travel nurses, travel PSWs, to sustain and to facilitate their care in that community," Boundy said. "Travel nursing is coming in, helping the community, working and providing the best quality care you can."
At the end of the day-long events, students did reflective journals to summarize their findings and take stock of the services available to both the community as well as nurses.
