SLS hope Faculty funds guided meditation app in the future
In November 2021, the Students’ Law Society (SLS) announced that they would be collaborating with the Law Students’ Society of Ontario (LSSO) and the Faculty of Law to run a pilot project for law students to have unlimited, year-long access to the Headspace app.
Headspace is a mindfulness and meditation app offering guided meditations for focus, sleep, stress, and more. As one of the most popular guided meditation apps on the market, Headspace aims to easily integrate meditation into a user’s day, which has been known to help individuals reduce stress and sleep better.
In its November 25 email to students, the SLS noted that this is a “proactive mental health measure that is preventative more than anything else,” and hoped that the app’s flexible nature would be beneficial to law students and their schedules.
The Headspace app requires a paid subscription to access its various guided meditations. Premium access to Headspace usually costs $17.99 CAD per month or $89.99 CAD for an annual subscription.
As a part of the pilot project, the first 50 students who signed up received a free subscription until April 2022, courtesy of the Faculty of Law, in exchange for participating in feedback surveys about their experiences using the app. Now that these spots are full, interested students may continue to sign up for a discounted flat fee of $8.75 CAD.
In a comment to UV, SLS President Willem Crispin-Frei (3L) and Vice President of Student Life Vanshika Dhawan (3L) discussed the SLS’ motivations and goals for running the pilot project.
“With the discounted price available and the many challenges with mental health that we and other students have faced and shared, the SLS wanted to see whether the Faculty would be willing to contribute some funding towards making this opportunity available to students,” stated Crispin-Frei. “Working with Terry Gardiner and Cheryl White, Vanshika and I were able to secure fifty Faculty-funded spots this year with the requirement that feedback is sought to inform whether this was a valuable project to continue with going forward.”
Crispin-Frei hopes that the pilot project will have a positive effect on those with subscriptions and that, depending on the feedback received, the Faculty will increase its financial contribution in the future to allow more students access to the app. The SLS will also use the feedback gained to inform the LSSO about the uptake and use of the subscriptions.
When asked about the demand from students to sign up for the pilot project, Crispin-Frei responded that, at the time of comment, “we have 82 people registered–50 funded by the Faculty, 32 who have opted in. We are currently doing a second round of registrations, which will likely have a few more registrants.”
The first fifty spots were filled within the first 15 minutes after registration opened. According to Crispin-Frei, this demonstrates that students are looking for mental health tools and supports. In total, roughly 130 students showed interest in a free subscription in late November.
Both Dhawan and Crispin-Frei hope that the pilot project leads to additional Faculty funding, and, ideally, access to mental health resources for any student who wants it. Next year’s SLS team may also use the data collected to push for further mental health and wellness initiatives funded by the Faculty.
