Mental health awareness seems to be soaring at its highest. It’s no secret that mental health has been an increasingly popular topic of discussion in the past few years, and as with many topics gaining traction these days, social media is to thank for it. Initiatives such as Bell Let’s Talk are pledging to donate five cents to mental health programs in Canada for every interaction, and colourful posts with affirmations are popping up on feeds.
But while these approaches do bring attention to mental health, they often divert focus away from tangible reforms.
Reducing the stigma surrounding mental illness is an important first step to bring about change, since stigma can discourage individuals with mental disorders from seeking help. For example, the #mentalpatient hashtag trended on Twitter in September 2013 after the British supermarket, Asda, advertized a ‘mental patient’ Halloween costume. People living with mental illness used the hashtag to post pictures of themselves to challenge the stereotype presented by the costume. The hashtag was used 6,694 times within 24 hours, and the company removed the costume from its website and issued an apology.
With social media campaigns garnering a lot of attention relatively quickly, their impact is undeniable. However, no matter how many people click on a post or hashtag, the fact remains that institutional support for people with mental health issues is greatly insufficient. The focus of mental health awareness thus far seems to have been validating people who are struggling with mental health, and has put statements such as “It’s okay to not be okay” at the forefront of the movement. But what about real, tangible reforms?
Colleges and universities are areas of great concern in terms of mental well-being and access to mental health support. The National College Health Assessment found that nearly 70 per cent of Canadian postsecondary students felt “overwhelming anxiety” in the past year, and over 50 per cent reported living with debilitating depression in 2019. These numbers have undoubtedly increased since the start of the pandemic — but the mental health crisis was not adequately dealt with before the pandemic either.
While many campuses have begun to promote more open discussions about mental health in the past decade, these discussions often don’t go beyond stress, burnout, and self-care. These issues are the tip of the iceberg in an environment as diverse as a university that includes people from many different backgrounds, some of whom may have dealt with mental health issues since childhood.
The main problem with mental health support offered at postsecondary institutions is the lack of services that institutions provide for students in early stages of distress. Steve Mathias — the executive director of Foundry, an organization that delivers health and social services for youth in British Columbia — said in an interview with The Walrus, “Our system provides a narrow scope of interventions to young people who have lost a great deal of their function to mental illness… But we don’t assign resources to those who are just starting to struggle or who are struggling just a bit. Young people are falling off a cliff. We’re putting doctors and hospitals at the base to catch them, but we’re failing to prevent the fall itself.”
Universities must start treating mental health issues as accessibility issues and provide appropriate accommodations and resources. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mental health illness like depression can significantly interfere with a person’s ability to do physical tasks for their job, and even their ability to think. So, when students say they’re overwhelmed and struggling, they may not actually have the capacity to complete their work, especially when deadlines are close together.
One way to combat this can be easing protocols or penalties for late work. For instance, McMaster University offers an online self-reporting absence system that allows students to delay an exam or assignment deadline by 48 hours without documentation once per term. Many student advocates say this has led to stress reduction among students.
Universities are not psychiatric facilities, so we cannot expect every form of mental health support to be available on campus. However, postsecondary institutions do have a responsibility to ensure that students — who have entrusted their education to these universities, and paid money to do so — are put on the path to getting the support they need.
Urooba Shaikh is a first-year psychological and health sciences student at UTSC.
