Improving College Student Mental Health Via An On-Campus Support Group

Overview: Over several years, our university has partnered with a local NAMI chapter to provide an on-campus support group for students with depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns. This presentation will convey best practices, lessons learned, and other important information in successfully implementing an campus mental health support group.Proposal text: In recent years, the state of mental health on college campuses nationwide has considerably worsened and the present pandemic has only served to exacerbate an already significant crisis (ActiveMinds, 2021; American College Health Association, 2021; American Psychological Association, 2017; National Alliance on Mental Illness, 2021). Depression and anxiety levels are on the rise, campus suicide rates are up, and more students are leaving college due to psychiatric concerns (American College Health Association, 2021; CollegeStats.Org, 2021). As a result, university counseling centers are currently overwhelmed with the number of students seeking counseling services and need supplementary programs and services to sufficiently address the needs of students.

In response to the mental health crisis that currently exists on college campuses, a social work faculty member partnered with a local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to offer one of their signature programs-NAMI Connections-on a university campus. The program-now in its fourth year of operation-has been highly successful in providing a support group recovery model to students that builds upon the excellent work done at the university counseling center. The group-which is free, confidential, and meets twice a month-is a place where students have the opportunity to engage with others struggling with mental illness in a safe environment and in a group led by two trained NAMI support group facilitators. In addition to sharing resources and having the opportunity to voice their concerns in a supportive environment, participants have formed supportive networks of peers they can contact when they are in crisis. The group has made an invaluable contribution to our programs focused on student mental health and has been both frequently and positively endorsed by the university counseling center, university administrators, and the surrounding community.

Over the years that we have facilitated this group, we have learned some valuable lessons about getting a group like ours launched, navigating political factors in the academy that can both buttress and impede group progress, implementing effective strategies for publicizing the group, responding to the specific mental health concerns that 21st Century college students bring to the table, and how to provide effective, culturally cognizant support to diverse, multicultural students.

This poster presentation will share some key lessons we have learned in launching and facilitating this group, things that have worked well and failed, and the value of collaborating with a local NAMI chapter to provide this service for students. The hope is that other social work educators can implement a similar model on their campuses-both enhancing the quality of mental health of their students and strengthening the connection between NAMI and college age students. Once these students can see the efficacy of such a group, they not only add another valuable tool to their recovery arsenal-they can share this information the rest of their lives with other-whether in the professional or personal realm.