Watch the on-demand webinar on our YouTube channel.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges to student mental health. While colleges pivoted quickly to transition many services online and, in some cases, even expanded web-based options from March 2020 onwards, data from the fall semester suggests that feelings of isolation, loneliness, depression, and anxiety continue to grow among college students. At the same time, many counseling centers have worryingly reported drops in service utilization—suggesting that institutions must to do more to proactively find students in need and connect them with support.
More than ever before, student mental health is a top institutional priority, with 68% of presidents ranking student mental health as a pressing issue. This was the most commonly selected pressing issue, surpassing even financial viability, enrollment numbers, and Spring semester operating plans. Given the urgency of this issue, it is important that student affairs practitioners, faculty members and staff from across campus collaborate in order to maximize the touchpoints for supporting student mental health and wellness in Spring 2021.
With the Fall 2020 semester in the rearview mirror, we know more about the most pressing blind-spots and weaknesses in current mental health support. Through this webinar, we will share just in time tactics and strategies that leaders can quickly implement to better support student mental health in the Spring 2021 semester and beyond. Specifically, we will discuss:
- Targeted tactics to support students in quarantine or isolation
- Scalable ways to connect students experiencing heightened levels of depression and anxiety with wellness, resiliency, and coping resources
- Strategies to equip faculty and staff to identify students in distress and connect them with institutional support
- Creative and low resource ways to foster connections among peers and build community