By Donna Volpitta, Ed.D.
Although the mental health crisis started long before the pandemic, COVID-19 kicked it into overdrive, particularly for adolescents. Consider adolescence a butterfly's period, like a chrysalis enveloped in a protective layer as it develops its wings. Did you know that if a benevolent passerby helps the butterfly break out, it will not survive? The process of "breaking free" allows the butterfly to develop the strength needed to fly. In this analogy, higher education has been that benevolent passerby.
Here are three things we are doing that contribute to the problem, followed by ways to get back on track and help our students survive and thrive.
1. Let's Get Proactive
What if Smokey Bear taught us only how to put out forest fires, but not how to prevent them? When it comes to mental health, that is the tactic we take. We focus on services, attempting to provide more and more opportunities for students to talk to therapists. Services are essential, but they are only one part of the solutionÐand a reactive one. If we move upstream, we can prioritize prevention and early intervention.
According to the American Medical Association, "(Health) Literacy is the single best predictor of health status, correlating more closely with health status than age, income, employment status, education, or race and ethnicity." Most of us are familiar with aspects of health literacy, but mental health literacy (MHL) has often been missing. We need to develop mental health literacy (and we mean EVERYONE). Most educators do not even know what MHL is, so we need to start by providing foundational knowledge about what it is, why it is important, and how to bring it to a community.
Did you know more than 50% of today's current college students meet the criteria for a mental health concern per a Healthy Minds 2022-23 study?1
More than one in three currently enrolled students have considered stopping out of