Take Action for Mental Health
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Use the resources from TimelyCare, The Jed Foundation (JED), Active Minds, Born This Way Foundation, and NAMI to help your campus take action to improve mental health.
5 Ways to Support the Mental Health
of Your Campus Community
TimelyCare has developed five ways that campus leaders can take action to support the mental health of the campus community.
You can use these recommendations to support the health and well-being of students, faculty, and staff during Mental Health Awareness Month and in the lead up to Mental Health Action Day (May 16, 2024).
It can be hard sometimes to take a minute. So, encourage your students, faculty, and staff to find an hour in the day for themselves. Emphasize that “mental health is health” in messaging. Remind your campus community that, just like there are things they do for their physical health, there are things they can do to take care of their mental health too.
Help remove the stigma of seeking mental health care by setting up spaces on campus and/or online for students to share their experiences using mental health resources, such as therapy, peer support, or self-care tools.
Not everyone approaches their mental health in the same way. Share resources across the spectrum of support. From yoga classes and meditation sessions to counseling and psychiatry and everything in between, ensure students understand their options. That includes both physical options like campus counseling and digital resources like TimelyCare.
What key places around your campus or in online portals can you post an encouraging word for your students? Use digital signage, your LMS, or flyers and posters to post them.
“The health and well-being of our students is a top priority for me and our university as a whole. The ability to give our students 24/7 access to the mental health care they need will be a significant supplement to the in-person services available on our campuses. When students have the resources they need to best manage their health, they are better positioned for a successful experience at IU.”
Pamela Whitten
President
Indiana University
Resources to Promote Action
Use these assets below on your digital and social media channels to help your campus community take action for mental health. Use the hashtags #MentalHealthAwareness and #MentalHealthAction to join the conversation online.
Loneliness, Resilience, and Mental Health: A Call for Campus Action
Join Active Minds and TimelyCare to examine how college students value and prioritize their mental health
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
1:00 p.m. ET / 10:00 a.m. PT
Active Minds and TimelyCare will exclusively unveil the findings from a national sample of more than 1,100 students nationwide.
This solutions-oriented webinar will explore college students’ shared concern for mental health at their college and university, comprising their perception of if and how mental health is an important issue, their recognition of poor mental health in their community, and their belief that they can work together to improve mental health. This session – which will also include student and administrative perspectives – will also highlight the role of family and friends, shared concern about mental health, discrimination, and perceptions of how their college and university prioritize mental well-being in addressing feelings of loneliness and mental health issues.
Loneliness, Resilience, and Mental Health: A Call for Campus Action
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
12:00 p.m. CT
Join Active Minds and TimelyCare to examine how college students value and prioritize their mental health, as well as the mental health of their friends and peers, as they exclusively unveil the findings from a national sample of more than 1,100 students nationwide.
A recent nationwide survey found nearly 60% of Gen Z college students have received mental health care before arriving on campus – during their K-12 years.
While the campus mental health crisis for students of all ages and demographics is gaining a growing amount of attention from educators, government leaders, and clinicians, it was an issue long before COVID acted as an accelerant. Many college and university leaders already have made significant investments in creating a connected system of care that improves student outcomes by supporting student mental health.
According to an annual survey by Inside Higher Ed, about two-thirds of presidents (65%) indicate that they plan to increase their institution’s capacity to meet the mental health needs of students, staff, and faculty members.
To support institutional efforts to support student well-being and success, we’ve put together the 10 best practices that are common among colleges and universities that comprehensively address student mental health.
“By thoughtfully adopting a framework that promotes positive physical and mental health, we are prioritizing the whole-student experience and emphasizing an environment of emotional balance, creating community and purpose, and supporting financial, physical, and social well-being. We want to create a campus culture of resilience, and demonstrate our commitment to student success by empowering students to take actionable steps forward in their journey to wellness.”
Jon Dooley
Vice President for Student Life
Elon University
“We have requested that there are some therapists of color that look like our students so that it could help to address the stigma around mental health and make our students a little bit more comfortable with accessing and utilizing the services. Even down to the marketing — we specifically requested that the images and promotion have persons of color to represent different cultures … And so we are just happy that we’re able to meet their needs in this way, especially on an HBCU campus.”
Tierra Parsons
Director of Counseling Services
Johnson C. Smith University
“We have to have a holistic approach to meeting these students’ needs, especially post-pandemic in which our world got really turned upside down. In order for us to be effective, we need to make sure we’re looking at the whole student, we’re looking at the whole situation and identifying how we can help with each of those pieces. The more pieces we can put into place the better we can be able to support them.”
Jerrod Hinders
Counseling Center Coordinator
Amarillo College
“As a rural community in Colorado, TimelyCare can really help students connect with someone to help them talk through their problems or a mental health crisis where some physical service in the Valley may not be available to them. Whether that’s because their health insurance doesn’t provide coverage for that provider, or if it’s because there just isn’t appointment availability because there’s a lot of people trying to see the very limited counselors … having that resource available is critical. And being able to connect any time of the day, at the click of a button, is truly incredible.”
Sam Micka
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Western Colorado University
“The health and well-being of our students is a top priority for me and our university as a whole. The ability to give our students 24/7 access to the mental health care they need will be a significant supplement to the in-person services available on our campuses. When students have the resources they need to best manage their health, they are better positioned for a successful experience at IU.”
Pamela Whitten
President
Indiana University
“A year ago, retention of counselors was huge, a huge problem. We were losing six to seven counselors a year. Having access to TimelyCare to help what we’re doing, our ability to retain our counselors has improved significantly … it has really helped us with retention, and it’s really helped morale.”
Ellie Sturgis
Director of Cook Counseling Center
Virginia Tech
“[TimelyCare, formerly TimelyMD] helps us in reaching a broader group of students that we might not be reaching through our traditional counseling services. We have been surveying students to get a sense of their experience … I’ve been struck by the number of students who said if we didn’t have TimelyCare in place, they wouldn’t have reached out.”
Kevin Shollenberger
Vice Provost for Student Health and Well-being
Johns Hopkins University
“Having the more informal ability to share what you’re going through without it being an appointment with a counselor is huge. With the Peer Community feature [in TimelyCare], I think people enjoy getting stuff off of their chest and sharing it anonymously. Reading and responding to the posts, even giving little responses like, ‘you’re not alone,’ helps me in my own life and feeling comfortable to say, ‘I think I’m ready to talk with someone.’ Whether they take that next step or not is up to them, and they know the option is always available through TimelyCare.”
Jillian Allen
Active Minds Student Leader
University of Virginia
“There is no greater priority than the health and safety of our students and we recognize the additional pressures our student-athletes face in addition to their academic workloads. TimelyCare’s ease of use, convenience, and immediacy make it easier than ever for our students to get on-demand support.”
Dr. Jaime Gordon
Director of Athletics
Morehead State University
“Prevention is worth every bit of upfront work that you can manage on your campus, which includes having a comprehensive toolbox of resources for students to support their own mental health, which will inevitably turn into students supporting each other. Being understood in a crisis is so significant – it is critical to prepare, which includes knowing your campus, knowing what your students’ needs are, and responding to current events accordingly.”
Hillary Jones
Director of Acute Mental Health Care, Crisis Response, and Care Management
Case Western Reserve University
Mental Health Outcomes Reveal Impact
At TimelyCare, our mission is to foster student success and improve the health and well-being of campus communities. A key to fulfilling this mission is helping students get better, faster – especially those with severe depression and anxiety symptoms.
TimelyCare users who entered care with severe symptoms on the PHQ-9 or GAD-7 achieved, on average, clinically significant change by their third scheduled counseling or psychiatry visit. Additionally, those who entered care with clinical symptoms on the PHQ-9 or GAD-7, on average, dropped a severity ranking (e.g., moderate to mild) by their third scheduled counseling or psychiatry visit.
Join the Mental Health Conversation @ TimelyCare
10 Best Practices for Supporting College Students’ Mental Health
While available resources vary from campus to campus, these best practices are common threads among colleges and universities that comprehensively address student mental health challenges as part of their institutional efforts to support student well-being and success.
Campus Leaders Respond to Demand for Psychiatry Services
A recent study found rates of psychiatric medication prescriptions for college students have been rising since 2007, with approximately 17% of college students prescribed medication for a mental health issue. Explore how college and university leaders are responding.
Connecting Substance Use and Mental Health
With its mix of academic stress, social norms, and newfound autonomy, the collegiate environment can influence substance use behaviors. However, substance use among college students is associated with a variety of poor health and academic outcomes.
Looking for More Resources on Student Mental Health?
National Mental Health Awareness Month Resources
Active Minds
Active Minds is the nation’s leading nonprofit organization promoting mental health awareness and education for young adults. The organization is dedicated to ending the silence and changing the culture around mental health for everyone. Active Minds offers ways to talk about mental health.
The Jed Foundation (JED)
The Jed Foundation is a nonprofit that protects emotional health and prevents suicide for our nation’s teens and young adults, giving them the skills and support they need to thrive today…and tomorrow. Browse JED’s Mental Health Awareness Month resources to learn how to build resilience within yourself and across your community.
Born This Way Foundation
The Be There Certificate, created by Jack.org in partnership with Born This Way Foundation, is a free, self-paced learning experience designed to increase mental health literacy and provide you with the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to safely support anyone who may be struggling with their mental health.NAMI
The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is the nation’s leading voice on mental health and works in your community to raise awareness and provide support and education that was not previously available to those in need. Visit their website to find resources on this year’s theme: Take the Moment.
An Essential Part of Student Success
Shaniece McGill, Ed.D., assistant vice president for student affairs at Saybrook University, shares how access to TimelyCare helped a student stay enrolled.