Campuses face a big hurdle in connecting international students to counseling services, both because of a lack of awareness and the stigma attached to these services.
Using the resources in this final part of the toolkit, you’ll learn informal outreach strategies to connect more students with mental health services, discover effective stigma reduction tactics, and access audits for responding to three types of crises on campus.
Collaborative Campus Programming
Two of the biggest hurdles institutions face in connecting international students to mental health and counseling services are a lack of awareness about these services and the stigma attached to them. Collaborative programming with other campus partners can reach students with informal, non-threatening information about these services.
Purpose:Â The document below includes guidelines to help you start your own programming.
Organizing a Campus Wellness Day
AÂ campus-wide Wellness Day is designed to reach a mass of students at once with a variety of information and education. This type of event can increase student awareness about their physical and emotional wellbeing, clear up common misconceptions about services, and introduce them to the range of resources available on campus.
Purpose:Â In developing a Wellness Day on your campus, consider the following logistical issues, keeping your campus resources and demographics in mind.
Stigma Reduction Strategies
We’ve uncovered several strategies for bringing necessary mental health services to students that may be wary of them.
Purpose: Below, you’ll find information about launching the PHQ-9 and “Let’s Talk” programs at your institution.
Crisis Response Audit I: Campus Collaboration
When a crisis strikes, administrators must react quickly. Yet when an international student is involved, special considerations could take administrators by surprise and delay their response.
Purpose:Â Use the audit below to determine the best way to structure your crisis response team to respond to incidents involving international students.
Crisis Response Audit II: Family Communication
During or after a crisis, you may need to communicate with the families of international students. Without a plan for handling language barriers, staff may find themselves scrambling to locate a translator while consulting institutional privacy policies.
Purpose: We’ve identified three possible options for communicating with international families, detailed below.
Crisis Response Audit III: Campus Separation Logistics
In extreme cases, international students may need to be separated from campus due to mental illness. Institutions must have a policy in place to ensure student safety during these situations.
Purpose: The document below outlines options for financing and supervising student separations from campus.
This resource requires EAB partnership access to view.
Access the tool
Learn how you can get access to this resource as well as hands-on support from our experts through Strategic Advisory Services.
Learn More