5 Measures Universities Can Take to Better Manage their Students’ Mental Health

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What are the policy changes or new programs universities can launch to improve the status of their students’ mental health?

Artwork by Ghadeer Mansour Mutairi (Instagram: @ghmutaiiri, Twitter: @ghsasud)

With all the awareness on mental health issues specifically for the youth, universities often ask what can they do to improve the mental health of their students. Different countries around the world have acted independently and created various legislations and programs that have worked for their needs. Below are some of the suggestions on new programs and policies that could help manage mental health in universities:

Mandate mental health checks per semester or academic year for every student[1]. This is not to be applied as an admission measure, but rather a measure of their mental health to know when help is needed and to ensure its provision. This should be paired with early intervention programs whenever necessary to enable the correct treatment course of the mental health issues to take place[2].
Universities need to have in-house counselors who are specialized in handling youth-related mental health issues[3]. Some universities do not have counselors based on campus, or if they do, then the counselors aren’t expert enough and would refer the student to external clinics. This can be inconvenient and can intimidate the students from receiving treatment.
Mandate mental health first aid courses for all students as well as the faculty and the administrative staff. Participating in a mental health first aid course “gives people the skills to help someone who is developing a mental health problem or experiencing a mental health crisis. The evidence behind the program demonstrates that it does build mental health literacy, helping the public identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental illness.”[4] Every university already mandates certain compulsory courses for all its students to complete, mostly during their first year. It’s recommended for the mental health first aid course to be added to the list of the mandated courses from the very beginning. This allows students and staff to understand what mental health issues can arise, not only to help themselves but to also help their peers when needed. This course is very important for all faculty and administrative staff as often they get to witness the signs and symptoms and can step in to help if they know what to look for and how to respond.
In the previously published articles, it has been proven that academic pressure tends to be one of the major triggers for mental health crises among university students. There have been many articles that talk about how to avoid a meltdown caused by the academic pressure and how to handle it[5] [6]. While academic pressure is part of the university experience, some professors can be unrealistic in their demands, forgetting that the students have other courses as well, or that they are just undergraduate students. The problem here is that often the workload of the course is not monitored, and if it is audited it’s only after the semester is over, to ensure the grading was realistic. To deal with this issue, some universities established Students Workload Policies[7] [8]. These policies are meant to ensure that the workloads assigned to the students from papers writing, field work, study, recitations, etc., in each course taken are in line with the credits for that course, the academic year of the students taking it, and do not exceed a certain acceptable limit.
As every university has its own listing of student clubs, universities can sponsor and encourage the formation of student mental health clubs. Such clubs can be very sensitive to start on their own, so a patronage of the university directly will allow it to prosper and have as much of an impact as possible. These clubs can “promote mental health awareness and education within your school; they can provide an ongoing space for students to have a stigma-free place to discuss mental health; they can provide a bridge between community mental health resources and your school community; and they can give an opportunity to lead projects based on mental health and focused on reducing stigma.”[9] Starting such clubs also creates a great peer support system, which allows students to create a healthy environment for each other[10].