Mental Health Support Challenge for Small Colleges

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Mental Health Support Challenge for Small Colleges

• Andrea Conner
• Associate Vice President for Student Affairs
• Grinnell College

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Agenda

• Introduction
• Student needs for mental health services at
  Grinnell
• Framework of wellness and prevention
• Future research questions

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Student Needs for Mental Health Services

• Increased demand
• Stress, rigor, and availability for brief
  therapy only more students have access to
  higher ed than decades ago
• Increased complexity
• Diagnoses and prescriptions in hand as access to
  mental health providers increases earlier in
  life access
• Decrease in providers, on- and off-campus
• Especially in rural areas of our state and region

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Student Needs, continued

• Decrease in stigma increase in
  awareness Demand for services in an
  activist framework
• Increased expectations for all-inclusive
  service from a residential liberal arts college
• We are not an inpatient treatment facility!

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Framework of Wellness and Prevention

• When fully staffed, we can do more outreach and
  education on wellness, substance abuse, and
  violence prevention
• Other student affairs/academic advising staff
  need good training to be conversant in supporting
  students with normal developmental concerns (e.g.
  identity exploration, loneliness, transition)
• Partnerships with disability resources, wellness,
  TIX and violence prevention, academic advising,
  and residence life are critical

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Future Research Questions

• Usually, we rely on the best practices of our
  field to discern who should intervene, and how.
  Can we make evidence-based decisions on which
  interventions to apply?
• Universally, colleges seek an outcome of
  graduating students at the greatest rate
  possible. Can we make evidence-based decisions
  on when the occasional attrition is actually
  better for the student?