Amid campus mental health crisis, students work to support each other

During a council meeting, Parks pitched the idea of ​​offering statewide mental health peer support training. Other student representatives agreed, pointing out How long did the students have to wait? for counseling appointments at their colleges. In collaboration with state officials, the student council created the Green Scarf Initiative and implemented it at institutions of higher learning throughout West Virginia.

“If you’re having a mental health crisis, four weeks is too long too late” to wait to see a therapist, Parks says. “Green Bandana was a way to complement that long wait and help students have someone to talk to in between that time.”

This kind of peer support effort is one way college students and their institutions are responding to the mental health crisis that experts say is happening among teens—and thus playing on the campuses of higher education—in the US.

These programs have the potential to help students with “subclinical problems,” he says a report from the Mary Christie Institute published in 2022. After all, the report notes, when students experience distress, they usually talk about it with each other first.

But such programs also carry risks, according to the study, which calls for more research to assess how well peer support efforts really work and determine best practices for running them.

Students fill the void

Research shows that reported rates of depression and anxiety among young people have skyrocketed, leave colleges struggling to figure out how to respond. In 2019, more than 87 percent of counseling center directors reported more students seeking services, according to the College and University Counseling Center Directors Association. annual survey.

The COVID-19 health crisis has exacerbated the strain on both young people and the university systems that support them. Nearly three-quarters of college students said they had experienced moderate to severe psychological distress during the pandemic, according to the National University Health Assessmenta study of more than 33,000 students at 41 institutions of higher education conducted by the American College Health Association in the fall of 2021.

“Having a job, trying to keep up with your classes, and in the middle of the pandemic, especially when you’re in quarantine, it had a huge effect on everyone’s morale,” says Parks. “People had to take time off work, and that creates stressors. You cannot afford food or housing, you are also worried about an upcoming exam. Maybe you are very stressed and like to socialize to de-stress, and you can’t do it during the pandemic. The combination of all those things, that really puts a damper on mental health.”

How responsible should universities be in providing access to mental health care? Higher education leaders are still trying to figure it out. But Parks sees a direct connection between how well young people feel and their academic performance.

“Something I noticed talking to a lot of different students, you really have a really hard time being successful in your education and being the best you can be when your mental health isn’t first,” says Parks. “I notice a difference: When students can take care of their mental health first, they can be successful in other aspects of their lives.”

so while schools and their health teams adapt to the growing need for on-campus mental health services, students are stepping up to support their peers, running hotlines and text messaging services, offering training, and hosting events on campus. A survey 2021 from the Born This Way Foundation and the Mary Christie Institute found that 20 percent of the 2,000 students who responded had used peer counseling, while 62 percent of those who had expressed no interest in trying it.

Peer support programs vary widely in the type of interventions they offer. Some recruit students to provide prevention education, others involve students listening to their classmates, and still others see students acting as coaches, or even counselors.

The level of training these programs require of participating students also varies. For example, the training offered at Marshall University through the Green Bandana Initiative takes a few hours to complete, Parks says, while training at a more intensive peer counseling program offered at the University at Albany takes place during a one-semester course.

Inconsistencies in training are one of the causes for concern mentioned in the 2022 Mary Christie Institute report.

“Doctors and students we spoke with say extensive training for peer support is the most important element of risk mitigation, with knowing service boundaries and understanding protocols for urgent situations being a top priority,” the doctors wrote. report authors. “This is clearly an area that can be strengthened, starting with standardizing a level of training across the board and by program type.”

And it’s not always clear how well peer support programs work. An article published in 2022 in the journal PLOS ONE reviewed multiple studies on interventions aimed at improving mental health among college students and found that peer support provided effective treatment for depression and anxiety. On the contrary, a different academic article The review of multiple studies determined that there is not enough evidence to suggest that peer support improves mental well-being among college students.

Still, the Mary Christie Institute report states that with the right practices, resources, and assessments, “peer support programs can inoculate against worsening health problems that, like physical health, become more acute if are not addressed.” These programs show especially promise for helping students from minority racial groups feel “understood and validated, while increasing their sense of belonging on campus,” she adds.

wearing the scarf

After West Virginia student leaders decided to adopt the Green Bandana program, they worked with the director of behavioral health programs for the West Virginia Commission on Higher Education Policy to establish training opportunities for students at universities across the state. The commission covered the training fee, so participation was free.

Student volunteers from each institution spread the word among their classmates through social networks and by distributing information at the tables set up on campus. At Marshall University, Parks says, Greek life organizations joined the effort and encouraged their members to enroll.

Between the end of February and mid-June 2022, about three dozen training sessions were held at universities across the state, with enough capacity for hundreds of students to participate. When Parks took the training, he says he learned to recognize signs of a mental health crisis, including anxiety and suicide risk, and how to approach a friend sensitively.

One training video in particular especially resonated with her. It represents two friends in a restaurant. The first friend is overwhelmed by a panic attack and disappears, prompting the second friend to text, “Are you okay?” The two friends come together and together they take a deep breath and complete a counting exercise. Then the second friend asks, “Have you been to therapy? I would be more than happy to take you there.

This exchange reminded Parks of how her roommate set an example for Parks to follow regarding her own mental health.

“That first counseling session can be awkward if you’ve never been to one before,” says Parks. “I related to the aspect of a friend noticing and being able to go through that experience with you.”

Parks keeps his green bandana tied around the bottom of his backpack. And while he has yet to attract anyone seeking support, he feels the training he completed prepared her for that possibility.

“I think it helped me feel more confident about how to approach the situation if my friend ever needed someone to talk to,” she says.