For Tiffany Russell, caring for others begins with remembering to care for ourselves – especially during Mental Health Awareness Month.
Russell, a licensed clinical social worker at the University Counseling Center, will serve as the featured speaker at the upcoming Beloved Community Gathering: Heart & Mind, an opportunity for faculty and staff to step away from the busyness of the workday, enjoy a buffet lunch, connect with colleagues across campus, and learn practical tools to care for themselves.
In her work, Russell supports students navigating anxiety, depression, academics, belonging, relationships, transitions and other challenges through individual and group counseling. Upon her invitation to facilitate the gathering, Russell noticed an important parallel between group counseling and the connections fostered at Beloved Community Gatherings: both remind people they aren’t alone in what they’re experiencing.
“The most valuable thing [about group counseling], in my personal opinion, is that students see that they’re not necessarily navigating the things that they’re dealing with alone,” Russell said. “There are other people who are also struggling with some of the same things.”
Beloved Community Gatherings offer a similar opportunity for connection. Faculty and staff can sit beside someone they may not otherwise meet, hear a new perspective and recognize something familiar in the experiences of others.
“I’ve had an amazing experience at every event that I’ve attended,” Russell said of the gatherings. “Each one I have come away with a few things: meeting someone new, feeling like we all have something in common in that space at that particular time and, honestly, feeling refreshed.”
Russell plans to foster that sentiment at Heart & Mind by inviting attendees to consider the relationship between emotional, spiritual and mental well-being — and how caring for ourselves influences the way we care for others.
“As faculty and staff here, we’re asking the students to care for their heart and mind,” Russell said. “I’m also thinking about the importance of us caring for our hearts and our minds.”
That can be easy to overlook, particularly for people whose work is centered on serving others.
Russell noted that faculty and staff across higher education may be carrying challenges that aren’t always visible to their colleagues. And while Notre Dame employees devote considerable energy to serving students and supporting the University’s mission, she believes caring for oneself is an important part of doing that work.
“Sometimes we forget that serving students also means that we have to take care of ourselves, too,” she said. “I would imagine that there are some people on campus who are probably needing permission to take care of themselves.”
Russell hopes the Beloved Community Gathering: Heart & Mind can offer that permission, along with practical tools attendees can carry with them after lunch ends, and a deeper understanding of how individual well-being contributes to a healthier campus community rooted in belonging, love and hope.
Beloved Community Gatherings are designed to strengthen connections across campus, build bridges and create opportunities to live out Notre Dame’s mission. For Russell, that can begin with something as simple as connecting with someone new and sharing a story.
“It doesn’t always have to be this big-picture thing,” she said. “It really could be in those small moments, and those small moments can happen at these gatherings.”
Hosted by the Office of Belonging, Engagement, and Mission and NDHR, the Beloved Community Gathering: Heart & Mind offers the campus community a chance to slow down, share a meal, meet someone new and remember that whatever we may be carrying, we rarely carry it alone. Register for the upcoming gathering here.
The Office of Belonging, Engagement, and Mission and NDHR partner on the Beloved Community Gatherings to strengthen the bridges we are building—bridges to one another, to our communities, and to our world. These gatherings emphasize collaboration, meaningful connection, and fun, reinforcing the University’s mission to create a campus where everyone feels at home.
Originally published by at hr.nd.edu on September 28, 2026.