Programs, Education & Training

Social Norms Campaign & Stall Seat Journal: Georgetown’s Social Norms Campaign aims to dispel misperceptions about campus drinking, encourage protective & preventive behaviors, and empower students to make healthy decisions about alcohol. The HES Social Norms Campaign uses data from Georgetown’s National College Health Assessment and U Celebrate! Survey as well as evidence-based social marketing strategies to promote an accurate and healthy narrative about drinking at Georgetown. The Social Norms Campaign also incorporates tabling events in public campus spaces, free water bottles, and bulletin boards executed in partnership with the Office of Residential Living.

The Stall Seat Journal (SSJ) is a poster series designed to educate students about health and wellness and constitutes one part of the Social Norms Campaign. This colorful publication, posted in bathrooms across more than 25 residence halls, departments, and other student spaces, offers messages and health promotion tips about alcohol risk reduction, sleep, stress, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, consent, and more.

Hoya Health Hut: The Hoya Health Hut is a mobile kiosk that provides a fun, engaging, and open environment for students to learn about health and well-being. Through activities, games, and giveaways all run by Georgetown students, this outreach program supplements existing HES initiatives, offers tips for thriving at Georgetown, and contributes to Georgetown’s tradition of cura personalis. Previous Health Hut events have focused on self-care, stress reduction, sleep, flu prevention, alcohol, nutrition, body image, sexual assault awareness, and more. For more information on Health Hut programming, follow @GUHealthEd on Facebook and Instagram.

Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA): ACOA serves those who grew up in a home where either siblings, parents, or guardians struggled with alcohol or substance addiction. This group explores how to live in spite of the way this home environment may have affected self-image, perceptions of the world, and formation and maintenance of relationships. The group is built at the beginning of the semester, and all members end the semester together. For more information, EMAIL Patrick Kilcarr at kilcarrp@georgetown.edu.

Veterans Group: This group meets weekly for those who have served in the military and are finding the transition to civilian life challenging. The meetings focus on talking through the transition with other veterans to help create the best adjustment possible, especially within the context of a full-time college environment with students who have not served. The group is built at the beginning of the semester, and all members end the semester together. For more information, EMAIL Patrick Kilcarr at kilcarrp@georgetown.edu.

#BreakTheStigma: Sponsored by Health Education Services and various campus partners, #BreakTheStigma aims to increase awareness about eating disorders, body image, mental health concerns, alcohol/drug abuse, and sexual and interpersonal violence. The program strives to promote healthy recovery and empower those touched by these issues by celebrating resilience. #BreakTheStigma welcomes survivors, friends & family, and other community members interested in learning more. HES typically holds this event annually in February.

GUok?: GUok? is an HES campaign directed to help Hoyas reflect, identify their feelings, utilize coping skills, engage in self-care, and build emotional intelligence, or the ability to perceive, access, generate, and understand emotions. Building emotional intelligence helps you recognize your own emotions as well as the emotions others are feeling.

GUok? is made up of various characters, or embodiments of our different emotions, to better help students identify them. It’s difficult for these characters to represent all of the complexities of different feelings or experiences, but they personify the first building block of emotional intelligence: reflecting on and naming your emotions.

GUok? seeks to promote the development of emotional intelligence through the broadening of emotional vocabulary, encouraging regular mood checks, considering the intensity of different emotions, and writing down feelings or opening up to a friend or professional resource. All of these activities can help move students toward being more confident in controlling stress or negative feelings, improving communication about difficult emotions, navigating and diffusing conflicts, empathizing with others, improving important relationships, and working through unexpected challenges.

Hoya RealTalk: Hoya RealTalk is a play put on for all incoming students during New Student Orientation. This theatrical production focuses on health promotion and uses humor, interactive elements, and relatable themes to introduce content about alcohol consumption, consent, bystander intervention, mental health, and self-care. Georgetown staff, alumni, faculty, students, HES, the Center for Student Engagement, and the Department of Performing Arts all collaborate to produce, direct, and act in this annual production. For more information about Hoya RealTalk, contact Carol Day at daycr@georgetown.edu.

Shades of Saxa: Shades of Saxa is an annual retreat led by Jennifer Wiggens and Eileen Rodriguez at the Calcagnini Contemplative Center that exclusively serves womxn/femmes of color. The program brings together students of all class years to reflect, seek healing, and build community.

Art Therapy Groups: As I Am combines psycho-education, activities, art, and process. The group focuses on helping students enhance their self-understanding, increase their awareness of self-worth, and improve their self-esteem while connecting with others.

A Journey to Healing is a group for students who identify as sexual assault survivors. The group uses psycho-education, activities, art, and connecting with others to support survivors with coping and healing from traumatic experiences.

For more information, EMAIL Brit Egan at be200@georgetown.edu. Group offerings may also change depending on demand and student need.