The mental health crisis is impacting a number of students daily. Being a student involves a handful of stressors. Marginalized students have found that the services available to them don’t fit their needs. The process and the wait time due to the high demand creates even more stress for students trying to balance their course load and mental health.
According to the American Psychological Association,
“To minimize students slipping through the cracks, schools are dedicating more resources to rapid access and assessment, where students can walk in for a same-day intake or single counseling session, rather than languishing on a waitlist for weeks or months. Following an evaluation, many schools employ a stepped-care model, where the students who are most in need receive the most intensive care.”
It is imperative to adjust the current structure of mental health resources to meet the growing demand. These services should be free of charge and direct students to the best care for them with diagnoses and multiple types of therapy offered. Institutions need to support the students that fund their systems.
It also is crucial to have diverse representation. The lack of cultural competency within the healthcare system as a whole puts marginalized groups at a disadvantage. By tackling mental health within the education system, thinking the same solution is a “one size fits all” is colonial thinking. It ignores the historical and social impact different identities face that impacts their mental health differently. Students of color need access to professionals that reflect their identity. It is important for students to feel heard and seen, being understood through the context of culture and identity.
How can educators better support their students:
- Make yourself available- offer office hours weekly and speak with students with a sense of empathy, urgency, and understanding
- Provide your institution’s mental health resources on your course site and syllabus to be easy to access for students
- Check in on students who are not doing well in the class. Students are responsible for themselves but with the high price of tuition, it’s more than likely that something is going on with that student which is impacting their performance.
- Integrating social-emotional learning
A professor going out of their way to provide the best support for their students isn’t required but can be so impactful for a student’s well-being. Making yourself a resource and/or providing where to access resources is crucial.
Educator, Steven Mintz, a professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin discusses social and emotional learning
‘If you are a humanist or social scientist, why not integrate the study of emotions into your courses, even as you do more to make your classes more emotionally supportive, by bonding with your students, nurturing a sense of belonging and helping them develop the social-emotional skills of empathy, resilience and collaboration.” (Steven Mintz).