Why should we add this position?

This position provides an opportunity for a brother to lead your chapter’s efforts to promote members’ health and well-being. This will be an officer who can create, coordinate, and facilitate opportunities for brothers to develop lifelong habits and strategies to lead healthier lifestyles.

The selected individual has the chance to build awareness and provide education on a variety of topics that your chapter brothers have concerns about. This includes, but is not limited to, physical health and fitness, nutrition, mental health, and stress management. This can be accomplished through educational presentations, chapter fitness challenges, facilitating chapter conversations about specific health topics, participating in campus intramural sports, or a variety of other creative options.

This position also has the potential to help and support other chapter officers, including the Risk Management Chair and Fraternity Education Chair, giving them more space to focus on their specific duties. By helping coordinate training programs like ASTP and Social Strengths, the Health and Wellness Chair takes a proactive approach to help prevent incidents from happening, while the Risk Management Chair can focus more directly on potential incident occurrences. This also allows the Fraternity Education Chair to focus more specifically on fraternity-related education and training, while the Health and Wellness Chair can provide supplemental programming.

Part of brotherhood means making sure our brothers are the healthiest versions of themselves possible. It also means recognizing when our brothers are struggling. This is a chance to identify both healthy habits and signs of concern to strengthen the care your brotherhood has for one another.

How do we put someone in this position? Is he elected or appointed?

This position should be appointed like any other committee chair in your chapter.

When thinking of potential members to appoint to this new position, take into consideration how you want the Health and Wellness Chair to function in your chapter.  Since this is a new role, there is no template for how it should function in your specific chapter.  It will be beneficial for the chapter to take some time and envision how they want this new role to take form and integrate it into the existing chapter leadership structure.  If you want someone who can present education programs directly to the chapter, the member you appoint will need program planning and public speaking skills.  If you want someone who is more of a behind-the-scenes player, arranging educational programming and training with other presenters, the member will need networking and scheduling skills.

When should we implement this position?

This officer should be included on your 2018 committee chairmen.  You should appoint this chairman to begin serving in January 2018 and it should be re-appointed each semester.  For long-term benefit, consider appointing this position for a full year.

Is this position required?

This position, although not currently mandated, is highly recommended.  The individual in this position will be expected to attend the Regional Officer Training.

What kind of brother would be ideal for this position?

In identifying a brother for the position, you should look for someone with these qualities:

• Member in good standing.
• Passion and commitment to health and wellness.
• Knowledge of available campus and community resources.
• Able to build relationships within chapter and campus/community.
• Able to encourage and empower chapter members to make safer, healthier choices.
• Able to design and execute educational opportunities focused on health and wellness.
• Able to create new programs for chapter with no records or history of implementation.

Consider brothers who are majoring in health-based fields. This could include Pre-Medicine, Kinesiology, Biology, and/or Health Education. This position is an opportunity for these brothers to gain hands-on experience working with health allowing them to implement what they’re learning through their coursework, as well as a strong addition to their resume.

You might also look at brothers who have been involved with health-based efforts in the chapter. Your 2017 Risk Management Committee might be a good place to start, as these members are familiar with member health and safety. You can also consider brothers who are involved with health on campus, such as a peer health educator.

How will this officer get trained?

The primary opportunity for training will be at the 2018 Regional Officer Training.  Health and Wellness Chairs will have a separate track to learn more about the position, resources available to them, and strategies for success.

There is also an extensive resource guide available to this officer to use in his role on the Officer Portal.  We will also have webinars throughout the spring to provide support, share ideas, and build a network of Health and Wellness Chairs in chapters.

What if the Health and Wellness Chair can’t attend Regional Officer Training?

If he can’t attend, you could consider sending your chapter’s Risk Manager in his place.  You could also ask someone who might serve on the Health and Wellness Committee to attend.  Your chapter’s Intramural Chair could also be a good candidate if the Risk Manager cannot attend given his work with member health.  However, we expect you to appoint a Health and Wellness Chair if at all possible to limit role confusion.

What if I want to know more about ELEVATE?

You can learn more about ELEVATE on the Phi Kappa Psi website.

How is this different from the Risk Manager?

This officer will be focused on prevention and health-based education.  The Risk Manager is more focused on policy execution and compliance.  Adding this position allows for your chapter to enhance its focus on proactive education and awareness around health.

Can we just add this onto an officer we already have?

You might consider how you can expand the role of another officer.  For example, what if you expanded the role of the Intramural Chair?  He works with physical health in encouraging people to be active, and this could be a way for him to have increased responsibilities and beneficial experience.

What if we don’t have a Health and Wellness Chair?

If you don’t have this position, the Risk Manager would be the individual who would absorb these responsibilities.  If you don’t have a Risk Manager, then it would be your Fraternity Educator.

Who can I contact with questions?

For questions about this position, contact either Andrea Kleekamp, Director of Health and Wellness, or Drew Kerwood, Health and Wellness Consultant.

If you have questions about Regional Officer Training, contact Kyle Hickman, Senior Director of Member Development.