How to Reach Students Experiencing Mental Health Struggles

Schools need to rethink how they approach student mental health support.

"Millions of middle school, high school, and college students will soon go back to school, and 42% will do so after spending the last two weeks feeling depressed most or all of the time. This is according to a new study we at Springtide Research Institute have released, Mental Health & Gen Z: What Educators Need to Know, which surveyed over 3,000 students ages 13-25 in the last year and interviewed 80 more.

Today’s students are struggling with mental health at levels that have prompted the declaration of a national emergency as well as a special advisory from United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy: “Mental health challenges in children, adolescents, and young adults are real and widespread. Even before the pandemic, an alarming number of young people struggled with feelings of helplessness, depression, and thoughts of suicide…but the effect [of the pandemic] on their mental health has been devastating. The future wellbeing of our country depends on how we support and invest in the next generation."

This theme arose time and again in our interviews with students: Mental health resources at school were tailored to preventing crises, not promoting a mental-health-friendly culture.

“In my university context, performative mental-health resources, especially those that aren’t long-term, do more harm than good. Bringing in dogs to pet at the library during finals does not address the core element of why students have an uptick in hotline calls and stress and anxiety, like crippling anxiety, during finals and the weeks leading up to them. Therapy dogs aren’t going to solve that. We need consistent mental-health resources that address how academia is structured to make students stressed,” said Lana, a 22-year-old university student (Springtide Research Institute, 2022)."

“Even your guidance counselors at school will be like, ‘Oh, is everything okay? Oh no, it’s not? Well, I’ll help you, but you have to get a good grade on your test because you don’t want your grades suffering.’ We just need somebody to talk to who’s going to help us – who doesn’t have any motive besides just wanting us to get better. Our guidance counselors, even though they’re great, they have that mode of, like, `Okay, how are we going to pass those classes?’” said Julie, a 17-year-old high school student.

Read the full available article on Psychology Today

Reflection: Have you noticed an increase of mental health issues in students? What do you think needs to change to adress mental health issues in students?

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