Mental and Behavioral Health
This year, all UCLA incoming students were offered free online screening for depression, which more than 2,600 students completed. Students whose results showed they were at risk of suicide, severe depression or other serious mental health problems were offered access to treatment at the counseling center. The screenings are part of the Depression Grand Challenge, an effort launched by the school in 2015 to reduce the burden of depression by developing better methods of detecting, evaluating and treating it.
Cornell University has worked to strengthen its comprehensive public health approach to mental health, improving its services and coordinating campus efforts to address student mental health concerns. New programs in resilience, meditation and intervention have been developed since 2010, many based on a peer-to-peer model. As a part of this process, Cornell has conducted and invited others to conduct reviews of its mental health services and the systems, policies and programs that affect student well-being. From these reviews the school has identified three areas for future focus, including matching counseling staff levels with community expectations for timeliness and frequency of care, investing in other key elements for a comprehensive approach to support student well-being, campus health and safety, and recruiting and retaining talented health care professionals, particularly underrepresented minorities.
Last week, the Oregon State University athletic department announced that it is launching a student athlete mental health awareness initiative known as #DamWorthIt. The campaign, which is being pioneered by former Oregon State gymnast Taylor Ricci and current men’s soccer team member Nathan Braaten, aims to “destigmatize and spread awareness about the epidemic of mental health in collegiate athletics.”
Last week, Washington State quarterback Tyler Hilinski was found dead in his off-campus apartment. Next to the 21-year-old’s body were a rifle and a suicide note. In an op-ed in the Daily Trjoan, Rayan Fawwaz argues that as college athletes face a serious mental health crisis, colleges must prioritize their emotional wellbeing. “Now more than ever,” he writes, “sports teams must be able to look past the power rankings or stats of their star players. Now more than ever, sports teams must be able to look past stigmas associated with mental illness.”
According to The Chronicle for Higher Education, the way a university responds to a student suicide can be a matter of public health, and having a plan in place for the possibility of a student’s suicide may help prevent subsequent deaths that could occur through a contagion effect. In order to avoid this consequence, college administrators often turn to experts for advice on a “postvention” — best practices for handling communication, counseling, mourning, and memorialization following a suicide. Postvention practices are part of a comprehensive public-health approach to suicide that aims to counter contagion through a combination of counseling and other interventions, carefully tailored notification and media strategies, discouragement of memorial events, tracking data to discover vulnerability in certain student demographics and restricting access to dangerous places, materials, and situations.
According to a new report by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health, students struggling with their gender identity or sexual orientation have the longest-term counseling treatment while in college. The report also showed that students considering self-harm or suicide also participate in more counseling sessions, and that the number of students who reported they engaged in self-injury or attempted suicide is rising.
Resident Assistants are often the first line of defense in recognizing student distress. At the University of Pennsylvania, RAs and graduate associates go through intensive training with staff from both CAPS and Student Health Services in order to provide support for students in situations involving sexual assault, eating disorders, and in cases where students might seek support when contemplating suicide.
The University of Texas at Austin Counseling and Mental Health Center is embarking on a new program to promote mental health care for students by bringing it into the classroom. The initiative, “Well-Being in Learning Environments,” will allow CMHC to work with faculty to redesign their classes to better support student mental health. Thea Woodruff, the project’s coordinator, said that some of the initiative’s components are fostering collaboration, rather than competition within the classroom, helping students deal with subjects that cause anxiety, and encouraging student feedback to faculty.
University of Texas President Gregory L. Fenves announced last week that students will have access to school mental health counselors for free. Last fall, a student petition to eliminate the fees gained more than 4,000 signatures within a month. Fenves also reduced the charge for psychiatric visits from $15 to $10, the baseline price for other medical appointments at UT.
Utah Valley University’s Mental Health Services is adopting a new proactive program called the Preventive Outreach Program (POP) that includes a series of prevention-based presentations for the UVU community. The presentations were identified by the student population and focus on time management, depression and anxiety, relationships, emotions, stress management, study skills, self-care for helping professions, and the science of happiness.
In an attempt to create a healthier campus culture, the Vanderbilt University Chancellor’s Office and Student Government have attempted to facilitate a dialogue on mental health. The new “Listen With Me” social media campaign provides a forum to spread awareness about de-stigmatizing mental health. The campaign asks students to create short videos that start with the phrase, “I’m here to listen, and here’s why,” explain their support for mental health awareness, thank three people who have supported them, and challenge those three people to make a video as well with the words, “Will you listen with me?”. Videos are then posted to Facebook with the hashtags #ListenWithMe and #GoThereVandy.