I’m visiting universities in the US and Canada on a scholarship, funded by The Churchill Fellowship, to investigate effective mental health training initiatives for students and non-clinical staff.
From my experience as a trainer and from managing the Student Mental Health Research network and contributing to the research phase of the Student Mental Health charter, it is clear to me that mental health training in universities needs to be thought about in a more considered and strategic way.
With year-on-year increases in student mental health issues, many non-clinical staff (and students) describe responding to poor student mental health as an inevitable part of their role. Research tells us many of these groups feel under-prepared and under-supported to act effectively.
Universities have a duty to ensure staff know how to respond to presentations of poor student mental health. Ideally all staff would be able to spot the signs of someone struggling and have the confidence and knowledge to signpost them to the right place. To this end, many have made mental health training available for all staff (and often for students too).
However, the university population is complex and designing a mental health training provision that meets everyone’s needs is not straightforward. For a start, different types of staff encounter students in different contexts and relationships, from labs and libraries to halls of residence or perhaps via virtual means only.
Many staff have pastoral duties as an inevitable part of their job - such as PhD supervisors, Academic tutors, managers - but are wary of receiving extra training that is too generic and not tailored to their specific role and context.
At the other extreme, significant numbers of staff and students have taken on additional duties - such as student peer supporters, Mental Health First Aiders, Resident Advisors or wardens - that require both a more advanced mental health literacy training and an ongoing emotional commitment. Ideally these non-clinical staff responding to mental health issues would have consistent emotional support and space to develop and navigate challenges and boundaries through reflection with others. Research suggests this is an area the UK could improve upon.
Quite simply, mental health training can’t be a one size fits all.
I want to learn from experts in North America. How do the leading universities plan mental health training at scale, which caters for the idiosyncrasies of the university community? How do they support the ‘supporters’ – the non-clinical staff and students who are responding to student and staff mental health issues. And how do they measure their impact?
I want to return with a suite of evidence-based practices to share with my UK network, so that together we can make mental health training in UK universities more impactful. Mental Health training can lead to lives being saved; the more effective and suitable we can make it, the better we can protect the people in our university communities.