Online mental health tools available to university students
Posted Feb 1, 2020 05:02:32 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The long wait lists and overworked counsellors on many university campuses don't make for easy access to mental health care for many Nova Scotian students.
“Mental health is a big issue in post-secondary education for students. It is something that we found that it's not as accessible for all students,” says Mary Navas, president of the Saint Mary's University Students' Association.
But one new tool, Healthy Minds Nova Scotia, is hoping to change the landscape of mental health services.
Their five services available for university students are available online, 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
“It's a great solution since they can access it via text, or phone, but also the different modules that we have online and the website,” Navas tells NEWS 95.7's The Todd Veinotte Show.
The first of the five services is TAO, a “self-help” library with interactive modules, according to the Healthy Minds Nova Scotia website, which the SMUSA president says can actually reduce wait times for in-person counselling.
“It provides self-help and lots of module certifications to work at in between counseling sessions, which can shorten the length of the sessions actually and allow them for more appointments during the day,” says Navas.
The second and third tools may be familiar to many, and are run by Kids Help Phone. Good2Talk and the text crisis line are both 24-hour services set up for students to either call or text when they are in need of immediate support.
“The students can speak to trained professionals, knowledgeable about post-secondary and also it's just like a way of 24/7 grab the phone and talk to whoever you want,” Navas says.
For those services, students can either text 686868 or call 1-833-292-3698 to be connected almost instantly.
“If a student has a plan that it potentially dangerous such as suicide or self-harm, the average response for it is under 40 seconds for someone to contact that person,” adds Navas.
The third module is a peer listening service called 7 Cups, which is staffed by volunteers.
“It's kind of more like a peer listening service, kind of like the peer support services that universities already have in their campuses,” Navas says. “But instead of being one-on-one it is online.”
The final service, Kognito, is designed to educate students on how to help others who need support.
“[It's] kind of like an online mental health literacy training, designed to walk participants through different scenarios on helping others, such as making a referral,” Navas says, noting that faculty are encouraged to get familiar with it as well.
Because the services are entirely online, Navas says it's easy for anyone to take advantage of them.
“Everything's online now. Everything's in the grasp of your phone, and it's a fast-changing was of addressing issues and helping each other,” she explains. “It's less stigma around mental health…we're actually bringing what students are doing, being on their phones 24/7, and helping them through any stresses that they're passing through, morning or night.”
The Healthy Minds campaign comes at a cost of $600,000 a year from the provincial government. But Navas says the service is much needed.
“Not all students have that access to counselling centres every day,” she says. “And having this online model where more post-secondary students are studying online and are in rural and urban areas have access to. So we're just broadening the impact that it has for all students.”
For schools like Saint Mary's and Dalhousie, the largest universities in the province, Navas says it's important they've begun taking mental health seriously.
“All universities are looking into this and are actually supporting the e-mental health tools that students are grabbing into more and more, since it's more accessible,” she says. “So it's great the support that we've had from the government, the universities and from different counselling centres as well.”
