Authors: Ken Chatoor, Elizabeth Agoe and Amy Kaufman
Earlier this year, HEQCO published an evaluation of the mental health support system in Ontario’s postsecondary institutions (PSIs). Based on a series of interviews with institutional staff and community partners, as well as scans of services and strategies, we reported that PSIs are struggling in a variety of ways to provide adequate mental health support to students. Funding structures and cycles are not aligned with the operational needs of service providers; demand for mental health support has risen rapidly and has not been matched by service supply; and complex networks of service provision on campus and in community make coordination and cooperation challenging.
PSIs are struggling in a variety of ways to provide adequate mental health support to students.
We found that institutions are doing the best they can with the resources they have. With best-practice guidance and leadership from the Center for Innovation in Campus Mental Health, institutions are implementing holistic, whole-campus approaches to mental wellness and increasing collaboration with community services to provide inclusive, culturally relevant care.
We recently presented our findings in an interactive workshop at the Canadian Association of College & University Student Services (CACUSS) 2024 conference, “Supporting our students; Sustaining ourselves.” Our workshop was inspired by design thinking, an inclusive approach to problem solving that centres on understanding needs, redefining problems and challenging assumptions and developing creative solutions. We asked participants to put themselves in the shoes of campus mental health service professionals and consider how they feel about their work and what supports they need to be able to do their work effectively. Through this process, we explored innovative ideas and solutions to address those needs.
We asked participants to put themselves in the shoes of campus mental health service professionals.
During our session we engaged with more than 150 student service professionals from across the country, who offered thoughtful feedback and ideas. They described the challenge of the rising demand and increasing complexity of cases and lamented the lack of time for learning, reflection and self-care. Participants also expressed the desire to “be heard, seen, rewarded [and] taken care of” by the rest of the campus community. Some of the key points they identified included:
- The need for increased sustainable funding and greater access to resources;
- The importance of collaboration and partnership both on and off campus;
- A lack of connection to other institutional support offices; and
- The need for mandatory training, re-skilling and awareness building for all institutional staff.
These contributions aligned with and reinforced the findings from our study and echoed our recommendations for a “coordinated, systemic approach to the provision of mental health supports and resources” and increasing focus on culturally relevant support measures. For a detailed description of our initial findings and subsequent recommendations, you can read our report here.
Participants described the challenge of the rising demand and increasing complexity of cases.
Workshop participants also shared ideas that were new to us. One was the call to expand mental health education embedded in the K-12 curriculum and throughout PSE. Participants suggested incorporating mental health promotion and literacy to help students develop skills like time management, organization and stress management. This would help to ensure that students know how to access mental health support before they need it.
Incorporating mental health literacy would help to ensure that students know how to access support before they need it.
The Ontario government has made proactive policy decisions in this space — mandatory learning on mental health literacy will be included in the Career Studies course for Grade 10 students beginning in fall 2024. We know that PSIs are doing a lot of work to raise awareness about mental well-being and associated services on campus but, as CACUSS attendees noted, bolstering mental health literacy early on could enable students to better advocate for programs or services they need and foster a broader culture of awareness of and openness to discussing mental health.
We appreciated the opportunity to gather additional context about our mental health research and to hear directly from institutional staff who work with students every day. We invite our readers to share their thoughts with us in the comments or by email to info@heqco.ca (include “mental health on campus” in the subject line). Are there aspects of on-campus mental health service provision that need further examination?