The University of California, Irvine offers outreach efforts to educate faculty on how to engage with students about mental health issues.
Steve Zylius/University of California, Irvine
As concerns about student mental health increase, teachers are feeling pressure to provide support to students.
TimelyCare's January survey found that 76% of faculty and staff believe it is a job expectation to support students' mental health. This reflects student expectations, and was answered by 45% of respondents in the 2023 Student Voice survey. Inside higher education CollegePulse said it believes professors have a responsibility to help students struggling with mental health.
Three in four faculty members surveyed by TimelyCare say they are confident in helping students access campus mental health resources, but an equal number would like more training or support in this area. I hope.
UC Irvine established the Office of Faculty Support Services in 2016 to provide faculty with additional resources on behavioral health issues, crisis intervention, case management, health leadership training, and more.
Faculty assistance: The office was initially launched to provide one-on-one support and counseling for faculty and staff issues, but it became clear that staff also wanted resources and education on how to better support students. I did.
“Throughout the pandemic, I think we have understood much more than ever that faculty health and student health are no longer at odds with each other. There are a lot of synergies there, and if… If our teachers are not feeling well, our students are probably not doing well,” says program director Negar Shekarabi.
But most of the time, professors deal with struggling students who are struggling in various aspects of their lives. “It's not always obvious if they're struggling with their mental health. They're experiencing housing insecurity, food insecurity, all sorts of things coming up, so they might be struggling academically. ” said Shekarabi.
Creating resources: The goal is to help faculty feel comfortable engaging in difficult conversations with troubled students to understand their greatest needs and provide helpful referrals.
“Not all students who are having difficulties have to go to a counseling center,” Shekarabi said. “I still help teachers sit in conversations with students and ask further questions to better understand the situation and help them feel more competent.”
Many of the trainings and resources offered by Shekarabi provide practice spaces for teachers to engage with students, consider what students can say, and build comfort and competency.
Today, UCI provides training in suicide prevention, supports struggling students, and incorporates the concept of well-being into the learning environment.
Strategies for talking about mental health
Here are five creative ways for faculty to facilitate conversations about health and stress with students.
- Mental health days and reflection exercises create built-in breaks for learners to invest in self-care.
- Mindfulness writing exercises can help students who struggle with negative self-talk think critically about their interests and how they invest in themselves.
- Academic courses focused on student health and development provide a natural forum for discussing mental health resources.
- A short-form survey administered at the beginning of class provides faculty with insight into students' mental health during the semester and gives them space to address concerns.
- The course syllabus serves as a resource guide and can demonstrate the professor's care and respect for students.
Scale up: New to the agency is mental health first aid training. It is provided only to faculty and staff to help them identify and respond to signs of mental illness and substance use disorders. UCI has trained 21 mental health first aid instructors since 2021. Instructors offer her two virtual trainings per month to up to 30 community members pursuing certification.
Approximately 700 faculty across UCI departments and divisions have completed the training, and many more have completed the short, one-hour overview, which provides a practical option for those who do not have a full day to complete their certification. We provide content.
The university's Department of Educational Excellence and Innovation hired pedagogical health expert Teresa Duong in 2022 to train faculty and instructors in creating classroom environments that prioritize health.
“These kinds of questions about pedagogical health will usually come into my office a lot. She's really just focused on faculty,” Shekarabi says. “It creates a new channel in my office, a new source of referrals. I can send them to Teresa to help her work on some solutions in the classroom.”
The university also plans to launch an Educational Health Institute this spring to help instructors and graduate students incorporate elements of health into their curriculum.
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