Micro-Credentialing: Recognizing & Supporting Mental Health Issues On Campus

To earn this credential, please select 3 courses from the following list:

• Create A Culture Of Caring: Supporting Students With Mental Health Challenges
• Addressing The Unique Mental Health Needs Of Minority Students
• Supporting The Mental Health Of LGBTQ+ Students During Uncertain Times
• Addressing Mental Health Concerns: Building Campus Connections To Boost Well-Being & Success
• Assessing Social Media’s Impact On Mental Health
• Tackling The Growing Mental Health Concern Using Strengths-Based Coaching & Case-Management

Create A Culture Of Caring: Supporting Students With Mental Health Challenges

Overview
For professors, the past few years have been challenging. It can feel overwhelming when navigating constant adjustments in course delivery, changing expectations from administration, and teaching and supporting students through all of this.

Additionally, academic staff are often the first to witness changes in their student's behaviors. They are also often the first person a student will talk to about issues, including mental health concerns that aren't easy to navigate in the face-to-face classroom, and comes with additional challenges when teaching online. It can be hard to know what signs to look for, how to intervene, how to have difficult conversations, who to refer to, and how to follow up with students when these situations arise.

Therefore, it is essential to ensure the institution provides support to its academic staff. What programs does your institution have in place for these kinds of situations? How do professors connect with the program? What types of strategies can student affairs provide academic staff on managing the stress of supporting and guiding students in distress? These are all critical components for building a sustainable support system for students and academic staff. To truly create a campus culture of care, all staff at the institution must be included in the process, educated on strategy, and supported when intervening and referring students in distress.

Objectives

• Learn specific strategies for creating a culture of care on their campus
• Discover how to empower professors and academic staff about having difficult conversations with students in distress
• Learn how to educate faculty & staff about the BIT/CARE team and other resources available to them

Presenters

 

Jamie Molnar, LMHC, QS 

  

Erin Halligan-Avery, PhD

Addressing The Unique Mental Health Needs Of Minority Students

Overview

Students from historically marginalized communities often experience many challenges related to accessing mental health services on campus. This is exemplified by the fact that students from minority populations tend to access campus support services at lower rates than majority populations. With this in mind, our campus communities must develop specific interventions that overcome these barriers. It is more essential than ever, as many students from historically marginalized communities have been disproportionately impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The webinar will focus on the importance of understanding these unique challenges and ways campuses can work alongside students to decrease these barriers and connect students to the right supports at the right time to foster a cohesive and resilient student body.

Objectives

• Understand the unique mental health and well-being trends of students from historically marginalized communities.
• Analyze the importance of co-designing mental health and well-being solutions alongside students from historically marginalized communities to ensure adoption, utilization, and related health impacts.
• Explore and analyze inclusive interventions that have demonstrated success in supporting student mental health and well-being.

Presenter

 

Dr. Nathaan Demers

Supporting The Mental Health Of LGBTQ+ Students During Uncertain Times

Overview
There are a number of systemic challenges that affect the mental health of LGBTQ+ students. For instance, LGBTQ+ students in unsupportive learning environments lower GPAs, more absences, lower self-esteem, higher rates of depression, and less educational aspirations for completing a college degree.

Following the rapid transition to online learning for the spring 2020 term, a number of emerging concerns also appeared for this student demographic. Specifically, the most evident were concerns about well-being for students returning to unsupportive familial homes and increased rates of depression and anxiety.

As many institutions prepare for the upcoming academic year, we must recognize the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has presented for the mental health and well-being for LGBTQ+ students. As such, this webinar will help attendees do the following:

• Understand the systemic challenges affecting the mental health of LGBTQ+ students
• Recognize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding stay-at-home orders on the mental health of LGBTQ+ students
• Consider ways to more actively support the mental health of this student demographic in the classroom
• In regards to support in the classroom, attendees will learn about various methods for inclusive support around mental health for LGBTQ+ students. This conversation will include best practices for syllabus design, in-class and online discussions, and more. And finally, this presentation will conclude with a review of various LGBTQ+ affirming mental health resources for students in need.

Objectives

• Identify systemic challenges affecting the mental health of LGBTQ+ students
• Understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding stay-at-home orders on the mental health of LGBTQ+ students
• Recognize pedagogical techniques to better support the mental health needs of LGBTQ+ students in the classroom
• Identify LGBTQ+ affirming mental health resources for students in need

Presenter

Dorian Rhea Debussy, Ph.D.

Addressing Mental Health Concerns: Building Campus Connections To Boost Well-Being & Success

Overview

What if you could find one solution that would move the needle on several of the most difficult problems you face as a campus? Building student connections may be that solution. Positive social connections are essential to mental health and wellbeing and are more important than any other factor in preventing suicide. Having just one close relationship on campus significantly increases engagement, retention, and even alumni giving. Friendship also plays a significant role in students’ sense of belonging and inclusion. Unfortunately—according to the National College Health Assessment— more than half of students are lonely. The opportunities that colleges typically offer to help students get to know each other do not successfully address this issue. Fortunately, there are specific strategies campuses can use to build student connections and community.

This webinar will provide an overview of current data on loneliness and the importance of connection on college campuses. The presenter will give an overview of the 6 S’s of Building Connection and walk participants through a connection audit worksheet to self-assess if and how they are using these core strategies and how they might incorporate more. The session will include examples of evidence-based programs that successfully reduce loneliness and increase connection. One such program, ProjectConnect, is a 5-session peer-facilitated program that takes small groups of students through a curriculum of conversation prompts and activities that have been shown to build closeness.

Objectives

• Discuss the importance of social connection on mental health and academic outcomes
• Learn the 6 S’s of building connections and assess how many you are currently using
• Utilize a self-assessment connection audit worksheet
• Explore specific exercises to accelerate connections
• Define one step you can take to increase connection on your campus

Presenter

Jessica Gifford LICSW

Assessing Social Media’s Impact On Mental Health

Overview
“Many studies have been done related to the negative and positive effects social media may have on college students and their mental health. The most common issues associated with college students’ mental health and social media use is depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, body image, sleeping problems, social isolation, and emotional difficulties.” -- Eema Ibrahim (Medium)

“Many college students are living dual virtual and real lives, and the virtual life is competing and at times becomes more important than real life. This is not only something that those of us in the trenches see clinically but it has been well- documented in research studies.” – David Rosenberg (Wayne State University)

“Interaction on social media is not beneficial. It’s electronic. The higher the cellphone use, the more time spent on social media, and the higher the anxiety. Peer relationships actually get worse the more you use your phone.” -- Jacob Barkley (Kent State University)

Technology always precipitates unintended and undesirable consequences. The evidence is mounting that over-involvement with social media interferes with critical thinking and problem-solving skills, including those needed to resolve interpersonal as well as intrapersonal conflict. The implications and consequences of this obsessive behavior for college students are becoming more pronounced as more this issue continues to be researched by a growing number of investigators.

In this applications-oriented webinar, participants will explore the latest research concerning the emerging connection between over involvement with social media and college students’ emotional and mental health and how to effectively intervene with affected students in order to help them be more successful in college, after college, and in life in general. The focus will be on evidence-based best practices as they relate to assisting students to manage and overcome the problems associated with this counterproductive behavior.

Objectives

• Understand how today’s students are inherently different from their predecessors
• Contemplate the role social media plays in the lives of contemporary college students
• Differentiate emotional states and their emerging connection to social media
• Describe the emerging relationship between over involvement with social media and emotional issues and mental illness
• Assess students’ level of involvement with social media, including the advantages and disadvantages associated with various platforms
• Educate students, faculty, staff, and student affairs professionals regarding social media and how over-involvement can precipitate stress, anxiety, depression, and even suicide and violence
• Recognize basic symptomology and warning signs associated with over involvement with social media
• Develop and implement a blueprint for effectively assisting students who are experiencing emotional and mental challenges due to their overindulgence in social media

Presenters

Dr. Aaron Hughey

Dr. Monica Galloway Burke

Tackling The Growing Mental Health Concern Using Strengths-Based Coaching & Case-Management

Overview

Students are entering college with a significant increase in emotional health concerns than seen in previous generations. “Recent studies indicated there are growing numbers of students arriving on college campuses who represent a wide array of mental health challenges and diagnoses, and both university counseling center and college student personnel need to be knowledgeable about those challenges (Barclay, S., 2014).” Along with pre-diagnosed concerns, newly identified “Generation Z” has also shown a decrease in communication skills, distress tolerance, and resiliency.

Research has shown that brief stress management interventions targeting coping and executive function may benefit college students at risk for psychopathology. Two promising avenues for preventive interventions in college students include the development of skills to cope with and regulate emotions in response to stress and the enhancement of executive function skills that are necessary for managing stress and regulating emotions (Bettis, A., Coiro, M., England, J., Murphy, L., Zelkowitz, R., Dejardins, L., Eskridge, R., Adery, L., Yarboi, J., Pardo, D. & Compas, B., 2017).

Coaching is one of the tools that case managers can integrate into their programs to help students develop these skills. At its core, coaching is time-limited and action-based. Several coaching styles can be useful in student support programs, but Gallup’s StrengthsFinder, in particular, is being implemented on many campuses throughout the nation because it is a proactive, positive, and holistic approach to student success and development. StrengthsFinder has shown increases in student’s confidence toward identifying their personal strengths, accurately assessing their abilities, and applying their strengths to help them learn and engage with others more effectively (Stebleton, M., Soria, K., Albecker, A., 2012). A strengths-based approach can, therefore, help students develop self-awareness through knowledge of their personal strengths and talents and acknowledging areas of development, which can be very useful in a goal-oriented case management model.

According to the 2017 HECMA Membership Survey, 95.5% of case managers work directly to advocate on behalf of an individual student and through broader academic system networking (Dugo, Falter, and Molnar, 2017). Adapting a strengths-based case management approach that promotes collaboration, skill development, and targeted, action-oriented interventions (‘doing with’) reduces the workload of case managers and instills autonomy and resilience in the student. Additionally, goal-oriented tasks also foster student accountability. Case Managers can, therefore, use strengths-based coaching as a way to help their students learn how to self-advocate and communicate their needs and concerns effectively so that they don’t develop a dependency on services that will terminate post-graduation.

Objectives

• Gain an understanding of strengths-based coaching as it relates to case management
• Identify specific techniques for integrating strengths-based coaching interventions in a non-clinical case management setting
• Learn strategies to foster resilience and distress tolerance in students through strengths-based coaching interventions

 

Jamie Molnar, LMHC, QS