Mental Health Services on Campus and in the NHS Chapter 18 Improving University Mental Health

They can encourage students to seek help when needed and provide them with the support they need to succeed academically and personally. If you need more than that, they can refer you to off-campus mental health professionals. Referrals to other mental health services are also provided as needed. Types of counseling potentially include short-term therapy, long-term therapy, group counseling, and workshops focused on specific issues like stress management, anxiety, test anxiety, and coping with loss.

Is counseling confidential?

There are often opportunities to engage with mental health resources even before a student sets foot on campus. Not only is your resident Student Health Center your go-to for check-ups and physical exams, but colleges are constantly expanding services to address mental health and wellness. Below, we’ll dive into the variety of mental health resources available on college campuses, questions to consider when investigating these opportunities, and additional information to help connect you to resources that are right for you. The National Education Association’s survey of college students earlier this year found that growing percentages of college students are reporting feelings of depression and anxiety.

Establish Peer Support Groups

I’ve worked with dozens of college counseling services and CAPS programs over the years and across the country and consider them an essential resource for today’s students. It wasn’t until the 1960s and 1970s that college counseling services became part SUNY Mental Health Resources of the normal student support system. WPI ensures that students are surrounded not only by professional resources, but also by a peer community that understands, uplifts, and responds to those who may be struggling. When students require continued or specialized support, counselors assist with referral options for long-term therapy in the local community, helping to ensure continuity of care.

So, like many of your peers, you stick it out alone, running on caffeine and sheer willpower to get through the school year. The few campus wellness workshops you attended offered no real solutions for managing the crushing academic pressure you’re facing. Our range of tools include counseling, test prep, academic tutoring, and essay management, all with the support of our proprietary platform, leading to a 4x higher than average admissions rates. Penn State has a First-Gen Advocates student group to promote mentorship for first-generation students. While increased conversations around mental health challenges and traumas often show us that more shared experiences unite us, there are nuances of mental health and well-being unique to a person’s identity or identities and related traumas or lived experiences. Now, so many tools are available to students right in the palm of their hand or on their screen.

• Additionally, students who are Black, indigenous, or other people of color (BIPOC) face further hardship in accessing care with mental health providers who can relate to their own experiences.
• Active Minds – Promotes mental health awareness and reduces stigma through student-led outreach and events.
• Recreational Sports promotes physical fitness, healthy habits and balanced behaviors through an array of recreation facilities, programs, classes, services and events.
• A good quality primary evidence-base examining these areas needs to be developed and then systematically reviewed before confident conclusions can be drawn about what works best to sustain positive mental health and wellbeing in today’s diverse and growing post-secondary student population.
• Family support may also be included in an intensive outpatient program (IOP), which can prove critical for students who may need to take a leave of absence from school to address their mental health needs.

Additional Resources

We see students from historically marginalized backgrounds, who may come from less resourced communities, feel more independent where like they can solve problems on their own. We’ve kind of returned to that pre-pandemic level of anxiety, depression and need, and that is ongoing. What happened is, any of those social connections that students had really dissipated during the pandemic. Students with poor mental health are at risk of a lower GPA, discontinuous enrollment, or dropping out. By redesigning North America’s first national digital platform for mental health, we achieved a 52% lift in monthly users and an 83% improvement on clinical assessment. Fascinated by all things human, she has written extensively on cognition and mental health, often leveraging insights about the human mind to craft actionable marketing content for brands.

It’s also easier for students to get medication, if required, as there’s an on-campus pharmacy in the same location as all other health services. A campus-wide health and wellness survey helps to ensure that the school is on the right track in providing that care. As with many mental health peer-to-peer offerings, the goal is “to bridge the gap between students and mental health,” seeking to make sure that the student body lifts itself up and succeeds.