Building Synergy in Promoting Mental Health Awareness across University Campus

Background: As mental health concerns are a barrier to participate in the occupation of schooling, promoting mental health awareness amongst students and addressing campus mental health needs becomes an emerging practice area... [ view full abstract ]

Background:
As mental health concerns are a barrier to participate in the occupation of schooling, promoting mental health awareness amongst students and addressing campus mental health needs becomes an emerging practice area for occupational therapy.

Pedagogy / educational approaches used:
As an interprofessional initiative, a group of university students were supported to form a club to organize and implement mental health promotion events on campus to raise awareness of the community. The club offers a unique approach to learning and community service by applying classroom learning to action; collaborating with students from various health programs; working closely with people experiencing mental illness: implementing and evaluating health promotion programs for the campus community. The club implemented a series of mental health needs assessments in order to understand the needs of the campus and to draw community awareness to campus mental health. Knowledge gained from each assessment continues to guide the formation of subsequent assessments. Findings from the assessments were presented to interested stakeholders, including university administration to bring changes that fosters students’ mental health and enable occupation participation.

Evaluation:
Not only does this club bring mental health awareness to the campus using innovative methods, it also enables student leaders to connect and learn from each other, practice program development, health promotion, team work, needs assessment and participatory action research.

Application to Education:
Event participants, student leaders and university administrators have all acknowledged the unique contributions of this creative initiative that connects interdisciplinary education, research, enablement and community capacity building together.