How Students Can Have The Biggest Role In Improving Mental Health On Campus

By Amy Oestreicher on February 9, 2016

What’s the next step for mental health support on campus?

Asking.

Asking for Change

We’re starting to ask the right questions through mental health campaigns on social media, across college campuses, on the minds and in the hearts of individuals impassioned by the need to end stigma, to create better access to mental health services, and to start the conversation about why these services are so important.

These campaigns serve to raise the question: How can everyone get involved in keeping the mental health conversation going?

I’ve been trying to help my own peers on campus with a program introducing them to wellness resources. But I think it’s each of our responsibilities as students to help, with the simple question: “How are you?”

The Problem

We’ve been raising our voices and concerns about these issues, with good reason. College suicide statistics are getting more frightening by the day. Active Minds reports:

*67 percent of college students tell a friend they are feeling suicidal before telling anyone else.

*More than half of college students have had suicidal thoughts and 1 in 10 students seriously consider attempting suicide. Half of students who have suicidal thoughts never seek counseling or treatment.

*80-90 percent of college students who die by suicide were not receiving help from their college counseling centers.

The Courage to Ask

Being able to reach out for help and find support is what helps us realize we’re not alone. Asking creates a path to a solution. We can start to bridge the gap of communication between departments on campus — academia, career counseling, wellness resources, and student groups — by asking what we’re currently doing to address the issue.

How Faculty Actually Feels About Mental Health

When I started to create a mental health program for colleges, I began asking professors, school psychologists, and students what they felt were the biggest issues needing to be addressed, in terms of students well-being on campus.

I was inundated with responses, from concerning to shocking, promising, encouraging, “pretty good,” and “not good enough.”

Here are a few:

“Unfortunately, America is still struggling with this stigma of mental health, and that’s true on college campuses as well. As an administrator who works with a variety of students with disabilities including emotional and psychological disorders, anxiety, etc., what I’ve found is that students continue to worry about issues of confidentiality or being outed for not having it all together and so they suffer in silence, until their personal situation escalates.

Many don’t realize there are multiple outlets and resources available that can help them simultaneously. For example, in the Disability Services office, we help connect qualifying students with academic adjustments and accommodations that may help alleviate how their conditions affect them in the classroom. But we also connect them with health services, counseling, residential life or fitness resources that can also help.

The best scenario is a proactive cooperative effort to support student wellness as a whole, and most colleges and universities have that available, but are sometimes not advertised. What I’ve experienced is that students often don’t know about or seek those supports on the front end, so their problems worsen. Some college support approaches may not be quite as collaborative, but the services are still available. Getting connected with the right resources or multiple resources as soon as possible is the key, and can make a huge difference regarding college success, and may save lives.”

-University Administrator, Former K-12 Principal and Teacher

“I have seen the jarring statistics that mental health has been rated the lowest it’s ever been in the last 50 years by the American freshman survey and personally I have seen a decline in my own students. Plagued with their own anxiety as well as taking on the anxiety from their families many students appear more stressed than ever. I am lucky enough to teach those students interested in psych and neuropsychology so I have a unique opportunity to use real world cases and student examples that those in class can relate to in terms of their own behavior and self care.

Oftentimes my email and office hours are jam packed with students asking for advice on how to handle situations outside of the classroom or are looking for advice on what to do. Counseling centers are operating on wait lists and students are not learning how to self care properly. It would behoove higher education to integrate mental health awareness, including effective drugs and alcohol discussions into their core curriculum that can be delivered by faculty who are the first line of defense to helping students grow and succeed.” 

- Professor of Neuropsychology and Licensed Mental Health Counselor

How Students Feel

I’ve also spoken with students, who expressed their own concerns to me:

“I’m very worried about slipping through the cracks, which I know is unlikely to happen at a school like this, but it still concerns me. I’m afraid of being forgotten about or left behind academically, and not realizing that I’m doing poorly in my classes.”
- Third Year Psychology Major

Turning Asking into Action

Fortunately, some colleges are now making an effort to make their services more accessible to the entire student body. One professor explained to me the plan of action her university was taking:

“To assist our students, we:
1. Refer them to mental health services on campus; we also offer a health facility open to all students.
2. Listen to their problems and offer kind “advice” — no judgement
3. Refer them to Disability resources also on campus
4. Refer them to community services that are available FREE in our area.”

- College Professor on International Politics

Making services available is great. But how do we know all students who need services, or could benefit from them, are taking advantage of them? When I asked another student about accessing counseling services, I was told, “Learning about making appointments is very easy, and I’ve considered it. Quite honestly, I don’t really have time right now.”

Asking to Prioritize Mental Health

The fact that colleges recognize the need for accessible services is wonderful. But how do we make mental health services a priority for both colleges and students attending them?

This is a question that we can only answer by keeping the mental health conversation going — and listening to what we hear. What are students struggling with? How do they manage their struggles? What help do students respond to? What advice inspires them? What goals motivate them? Who do they feel comfortable reaching out to, and under what circumstances? How do they support each other?

Asking more students about wellness activities they participate in, one student replied, “I just started going to a series of weekly workshops designed to help students with different academic areas, such as basics of writing an essay, organization, and time management.”

Another student told me, “Since no one in my family has gone to college before me, I really appreciate general college advice.” One student stressed the importance of substance-free spaces, saying “It feels really important to me that I can be in those safe spaces, since I’m substance-free.”

Improving student mental health on campus is not a quick fix, or a one-size-fits-all job. We need to recognize that each student is unique, with their own set of needs, and each student needs to be heard. Let’s infuse our campuses with questions, start the conversation, and just keep listening.

Looking Ahead

In spite of watching their struggles, a professor of psychology declared his unwavering faith in his student body: “Each semester I am amazed by students who are trying to manage full-time work, raising children, and attending college. They clearly have a reservoir of strength that allows them to do three things simultaneously that other people would do poorly even one at a time.”

If given the tools, every student can flourish in college.

His suggestion? “A simple question. I start with, ‘How are you doing?’”

Each individual is learning their own way through, at a very vulnerable time. Let’s help support them the best we can — not by implementing what we think are effective mental health services, but by opening the channel of communication, reaching out to students, creating student bonds and connections on campus, and, better yet, let’s ask them what we can do to improve mental health on campus. And let’s get ready to listen.

In asking these questions and listening, I’ve put together a mental health program of my own — a program that would have never existed had I not appreciated the wisdom of those who know best: the students themselves.

College students are strong, capable, amazing individuals; they just need to realize it for themselves. Through hearing each other out, feeling comfortable resting on each other in times of difficulty, and sharing who we are with our full hearts, we’ll keep the conversation on mental health going, until we can find improvements that will help each and every one of us.

If you don’t know how to help, just ask.

The Power of Asking

Asking for support can be scary. Fortunately, there’s more than one way to ask the question. These are some suggestions I give to students who struggle with seeking help.

  • Ask for help with daily tasks. Maybe someone helps run an errand for you.
  • Ask for advice. What guidance do you need? Can someone help problem-solve with you?
  • Ask for a listening ear. Compassion, empathy and reassurance have tremendous power.

And, sometimes, a student will share the best advice of all. When I spoke at a university last month, I asked the students, “What’s the best piece of advice you’ve gotten that has helped you through college so far?”

“Sleep, but don’t forget to socialize.”

Talk about it, ask about it, and discover we’ve had the right answers all along.

We all have a role in mental health awareness on campus. What’s yours?

Learn more about Amy’s mental health advocacy program for colleges here as well as her programs for LGBT students and sexual assault on campus.

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