How to Reach Students Experiencing Mental Health Struggles

from Dr. Josh Packard

Millions of middle school, high school, and college students will soon be going back to school, and 42% will do so after feeling depressed most or all of the last two weeks.

That’s according to a new study we published at the Springtide Research Institute. Mental Health & Gen Z: What Educators Need to Knowwhich surveyed over 3,000 students aged 13 to 25 last year and interviewed 80 others.

Today’s college students struggle with mental health to a degree that has led to the declaration of a national emergency and a special recommendation from United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy: “Mental health problems in children, adolescents and young adults are real and widespread . Even before the pandemic, a staggering number of young people were struggling with feelings of helplessness, depression and suicidal thoughts… but the effect [of the pandemic] on her mental health was devastating. The future well-being of our country depends on how we support and invest in the next generation.”

Springtide’s study suggests that Murthy is right: the number of struggling young people is alarming and how we support and invest in their healing is critical, although our findings suggest a change in approach is needed.

The current crisis draws attention to how to respond to the immediate health needs of young people. This is good and necessary. More than half of the students (55%) say they have experienced trauma, while about half (49%) say they have spoken to a mental health professional, such as a therapist, counselor, or psychologist, in the past three months (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2021). What is missing, however, is sufficient attention to long-term, proactive strategies to maintain young people’s mental health.

This theme came up again and again in our interviews with students: mental health resources in school were designed for crisis prevention, not promoting a psychiatric culture.

“In my university context, performative mental health resources, particularly those that are not long-term, do more harm than good. Bringing dogs to pet in the library during finals does not address the core element why students experience spikes in hotline calls and stress and anxiety, such as debilitating anxiety, during finals and the weeks leading up to them. Therapy dogs will not solve this. We need consistent mental health resources that address how science is structured to make students stressed,” said Lana, a 22-year-old college student (Springtide Research Institute, 2022).

Students also told us that school resources developed to address mental health crises, such as

“Even your school counselors will be like, ‘Oh, is everything okay? Oh no, isn’t it? Well, I’ll help you, but you need to get a good grade on your test because you don’t want your grades to suffer.” We just need someone to talk to to help us — who has no other motive than to want to that we are better. Our guidance counselors, while they’re great, are like, ‘Okay, how are we going to pass these classes?'” said Julie, a 17-year-old high school student.

The dominant model of using school chaplains to deal with student crises on a case-by-case basis is inadequate to meet the needs of today’s students. This approach connects to what hasn’t worked for a while: focusing largely on the individual and the psychic. In other words, what can a person do differently to improve their mental health?

This is good and necessary, but what is missing is attention to structural factors affecting mental well-being: what can organizations do to better support young people’s mental health?

On that front, students told us that school mental health treatment initiatives do not also address the underlying causes of stress—namely, the stressors that come from school.

“I have friends who will be punished if they don’t get an ace. And I think it weighs heavily on them, especially when they already have problems that their parents don’t recognize. I think there’s a lot of pressure put on us to be really good, to balance all of those things, you know, especially when our mental health concerns aren’t heard, that makes it even more difficult,” said Ara, a 16 year old. year-old high school student.

Sophie, Sofia and Acadia, high school students who are serving as ambassadors for Springtide, wrote in a joint statement: “Most high school students are never encouraged to pursue anything that isn’t directly related to college aspirations. We’re expected to do clubs, sports, AP courses, college courses, and work, all so that we can get into a good college… Sometimes it seems that the school systems push the idea of ​​college and careers so much that that they forget to care about the hearts and souls of the students.”

To address the student mental health crisis at a systemic level, schools must begin to question the expectations placed on students to determine whether they are realistic or achievable. Onnie Rogers [the usual author of this blog page] teaches at an elite institution and serves on Springtide’s Research Advisory Board. In our report, she tells of a class of hers in which some time “emphasized the structure of my lectures and exams, individual knowledge, achievement and competition, [leaving] little room for students to make meaningful connections, spark curiosity, or make new discoveries.” Students often dropped out of class if they didn’t get a near-perfect score on the first test.

Rogers recognized that her pedagogy generated the kind of stress and competition that exacerbated mental health challenges. She restructured the course and aimed to create a learning space focused on relationships, curiosity, justice and discovery. “The difference was transformative,” she writes. “Students are more engaged and less anxious. They report how much they appreciate a learning space where they are encouraged and free to think, explore, ask questions and really learn.”

Imagine schools encouraging this type of transformation across courses and curriculum. I believe this is exactly the kind of approach needed to support and invest in Gen Z mental health: building an organizational culture in a school or university that is, at its core, mental health to encourage, rather than change, as an afterthought to respond to mental health crises.

Josh Packard, Ph.D., is executive director of the Springtide Research Institute, which maintains one of the largest datasets on young people in the United States. He is the author of books includingFinding meaning: 8 values ​​driving America’s newest generationsandRefugees from the Church: Why people are done with the church but not with their faith.