Colleges need to reach out with a positive mental attitude to students

For many, college days coincide with quite a challenging time of life. Derek Chambers argues that colleges are uniquely placed to offer advice and support

THE period of time a young person, or a mature student, spends on a college campus can be incredibly valuable. The opportunity to gain in-depth knowledge of an interesting subject in a supportive environment in the company of your peers is a privilege. Added to that, the array of clubs and societies offering all sorts of sporting and social activity means that, in theory, college life really can be a special time.

But what if at all goes wrong? What about the loners and outsiders, or those who feel the pressure of exams more than others? What about those who can’t really afford to be in college? Even then college is a great place because there is free counselling services, student support services or the sanctuary of the chaplaincy for a cup of tea.

While it can be argued that the college environment is supportive, indeed protective, the typical age of third-level students coincides with the time in life when many mental health difficulties tend to arise. A large-scale, well known study by Kessler and colleagues in the US reports that 75% of all mental health difficulties in the population have developed by the age of 24. Large-scale studies aside, college life is associated with the challenges of adapting to an unfamiliar environment, transitioning from adolescence to young adulthood and from dependence to greater independence. Those challenges go hand-inhand with the need to manage academic pressures and, for some, the added stress of a part-time job.

Taken all together, time spent in college can be marked by both opportunity and pressure. For some students, we know that pressure can be difficult to cope with, and increasing numbers of students are attending student counselling services for help with depression, anxiety, and a range of other issues including money concerns.

Many of these students are at risk of dropping out of college altogether because of mental health or academic pressures, or both.

Over the past 18 months, ReachOut Ireland have been working closely with colleagues from the Irish Association of University and College Counsellors (IAUCC). In that time, we have learned a lot about the day-to-day running of student counselling services.

In colleges across Ireland, counselling services are seeing an average of 5.5% of the student body in any given academic year and the numbers attending are coninually rising. Apart from providing face-to-face support to thousands of students each year, counselling services perform an important role just by existing. A vast majority of students in the study we are launching this week (87%) agreed that “it is reassuring that free counselling services exist on campus”.

Along with general student health services, Irish university and college counsellors are performing a key role that must be valued, not just in the context of third level, but by wider society.

Results from our study of help-seeking among students clearly endorse services on campus. For example, the vast majority (86%) of those who previously accessed mental health support in college would be likely or very likely to avail of one to one counselling again. A majority of students (59%) also agreed that “college supports and services for mental health are easily accessible”.

The recommendations in relation to supports and services on campus contained in our research report are clear. Existing services are known and trusted. They fulfil a crucial job in supporting students and, as they are under increasing pressure, they should be better supported.

Further recommendations from our research relate to the work we should be doing collaboratively to positively influence the culture as it relates to mental health on campus. This can be achieved if we take the opportunity to promote positive mental health in the first place by assuming leadership in the communication on mental health.

Students — the future teachers, doctors, nurses, journalists, mothers and fathers of this country — are a captive audience. Our report recommends that “colleges cultivate and actively promote a culture of positive mental health and help-seeking, with mental health framed as an integral part of everyday life, and as a concept that does not pertain solely to mental health difficulty”.

In order to explore students’ current understanding of mental health, word association was used in the focus groups we conducted as part of our study. Students were asked to write down words associated with the term ‘mental health’ and unfortunately responses were generally negative. Indeed, one student wrote “mental health = a problem”, and another wrote “people needing help”.

The culture around mental health can be changed so that we adopt a broad, shared meaning if we act on some practical steps recommended by the students that we met with.

Students recommended, for example, that colleges endorse and promote quality-assured information online because “if you do have a problem it’s a lot easier to just see something and click on it, rather than think about it and go find it”. That college endorsement of online information is vital. Students trust their colleges and if information is being pushed out from within, students will access it when they need it.

Through ReachOut Ireland’s collaboration with the IAUCC we have been working towards the promotion of a dedicated space online for students — www.reachout.com/college — while continuing to learn more about students’ help-seeking preferences to inform service developments.

This partnership, which has been supported by the HSE National Office for Suicide Prevention, has been a positive example of cross-sector working which recognises that student mental health is an important issue, not just for the institutions where they are registered, but for Irish society more generally. Students are open to conversations about mental health as part of everyday life. If those conversations are encouraged we can foster a positive culture of help-seeking among students so that problems are addressed before they escalate to crises.

Derek Chambers is director of programmes and policy with ReachOut Ireland.