Supporting Students' Mental Health

"With the increase in the number of mental health concerns across university campuses, one might expect university resources to accommodate. However, with limited resources, this is not the case. "

What can I do as a student and as an aspiring Student Affairs professional?

Problem Recognition

After the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic, conversations surrounding mental health have been more critical than ever. University students were sent home mid-semester expected to adapt to the changing environment and course work. Flash forward to today and it has been two years of the unpredictable with constantly changing guidelines. The latest Student Voice survey, conducted by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse, indicated that a year into the pandemic, 65% of students reported having fair or poor mental health (Ezarik, Melissa). The mental health conversations surrounding the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak are in addition to the mental health issues affecting college students before March 2020. In 2019, “90% of counseling center directors reported an increase in students seeking services” (Abrams, Zara). With the increase in the number of mental health concerns across university campuses, one might expect university resources to accommodate. However, with limited resources, this is not the case.
Time magazine published an article that stated, “the average university has one professional counselor for every 1,737 students — fewer than the minimum of one therapist for every 1,000 to 1,500 students recommended by the International Association of Counseling Services” (Reilly, Katie). In the Student Voice survey, those with self-assed poor mental health graded their college’s response to student mental health as a C or lower. Furthermore, one-third of students who ranked their college with a D or F ranking found the process of booking with counseling services difficult. There simply is not enough counselors and the process to schedule an appointment is too difficult.
It is important to acknowledge the lack of funding available to universities. Funding for more counselors is not easy to obtain, and many colleges who did add counseling staff in the peak of the pandemic are still swamped with appointments (Abrams, Zara). In addition, many universities like the University of South Carolina have tried to adapt by offering other types of counseling services like group sessions and telehealth partnerships to meet the growing demand. However, with the growing mental health concerns for a university’s main stakeholder, students, universities should do more.

So what?

Universities have an obligation to support their students as stakeholders. Colleges should be addressing student needs. Student success can be linked back to the quality of their mental health. As discussed in my third key insight, The Power of Belonging, from the conversations in my social psychology class, I learned that sense of belonging is one of the powerful factors in determining a person’s success. If universities are turning their students away when they are seeking support, what does that tell them about their worth to the university? Treating a university campus as a community, students should be able to expect the university to care about their wellbeing. My work with the Capstone Scholars Host Team has shown me the power of connection. It is worrisome to think that as students are turned away from counseling, they may begin to feel isolated from the community.

Solution Implementation

I do think it is possible to better serve university students in mental health without increasing budgets and hiring more professional full-time counseling staff. As in The Power of Belonging, I learned how important it is to build a sense of belonging for students, and part of that, is making students feel connected, seen, and heard. Therefore, to solve the problem of unmet student mental health needs, I would take two action steps: partner with campus offices and launch an educational campaign.

Partnering with different campus offices – Different campus offices have their own newsletters or ways to connect with students. I could get information out to their students about the variety of campus resources. My work with Parent and Family Programs and their newsletter as discussed in Key Insight 1: Sell Solutions saw positive outcomes with an increase in open and click rates. We can use all of our audiences to spread the news. Furthermore, I could ask for campus office support in funding private spaces across campus for telehealth appointments. Online telehealth appointments have been a great resource for many, especially during COVID-19. However, for students in residence halls or shared apartment spaces, there is limited access to private space. If we can provide private rooms for the virtual counseling appointments, that would remove a large barrier in the process: the need for privacy. I would reach out to Student Government because they have access to more resources, people, and authority in campus legislation. If we want to make mental health on college campuses a greater priority, we have to have buy-in from the institution and its other stakeholders like the board of trustees.

Launching an Educational campaign – Universities like the University of South Carolina have many resources other than traditional one-to-one counseling available to students. Group therapy and telehealth counseling are two examples. However, these resources are not talked about as often. When students are touring the campus and hearing from University Health Services, they are told with excitement that as a student they have ten free one-to-one counseling sessions a year through the university. It creates this expectation that one-to-one counseling is the best resource and so when wait times are one month or longer out, students feel discouraged. Many do not know how to access these other resources. Therefore, I could launch an educational campaign that highlights a different mental health service each week. Using social media is a great tool to reach students today. I would reach out to the different organizations on campus dedicated to mental health and propose a joined effort. A lot of different organizations are recognizing the importance of mental health, but we could do more together. I would talk to students in student organizational meetings and in classes. The resources will not be used if they are not advertised.

I am about to start grad school for Higher Education and Student Affairs, so I will be on a college campus for the rest of my career. College campuses across the country are dealing with this issue. I can take these action steps with me wherever I go.

Evaluation

To determine the success of my action steps, I would have to monitor changes in student ratings of my university’s mental health offerings before and after. I would define success by the number of students who do take advantage of the full offering. How many students are using telehealth and the private rooms? This, of course, would require a working relationship with University Health Services and transparency.
Students need to feel heard and seen. My hope is that with these partnerships and campaigns, students will begin to hear more about the variety of mental health resources available. If more students know about our resources, more will use them.
Ultimately, it is important to me that we maximize the resources for mental health available because students cannot succeed, or have a sense of belonging in their community if their university is not demonstrating concern for their wellbeing.

Sources

Abrams, Zara. “A Crunch at College Counseling Centers.” American Psychological Association, APA, 11 July 2020, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/09/crunch-college-counseling.

Ezarik, Melissa. Students Struggling but Not Seeking Campus Mental Health Support, Inside Higher Ed, 14 Apr. 2021, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/04/14/students-struggling-not-seeking-campus-mental-health-support.

Reilly, Katie. “Anxiety and Depression: More College Students Seeking Help.” Time, Time Magazine, 19 Mar. 2018, https://time.com/5190291/anxiety-depression-college-university-students/.