Like many college students, Grace Oldham feels the compounding effects of work demands, classes and campus life.
Mindful of her own need for mental wellness, she took advantage of the free counseling services offered at her school, the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Now, she wants to continue care for the long-term, but is facing some barriers.
“My insurance told me there’s no one within 45 miles of me who is currently accepting new patients,” Oldham said. “So I just know it’s all very overworked right now.”
Oldham, who studies biology on a pre-medical track, recently had the opportunity to shadow an emergency room doctor. While exploring her interest in emergency medicine, she saw the need for mental health resources in the wider community.
“We had numerous patients come in … who were seeking mental aid, but the E.R. didn’t provide the resources for that,” Oldham said.
Unless the patients had psychosis or met the criteria for care under the Florida Mental Health Act — commonly known as the Baker Act, which outlines conditions for emergency interventions for people at risk to themselves or others — there was little the E.R. could do.
Oldham and other ministry leaders are hoping to change that lack of resources for college students.
Oldham is a member of the design team and a participant of The Wellness Project, a Florida United Methodist Foundation-supported initiative to provide mental health resources to campus ministry leaders and the students they serve.
Working with Heather Pancoast, co-director at Gator Wesley, the United Methodist campus ministry at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Oldham helped design “Tools for the Journey,” the last of eight sessions provided through The Wellness Project’s pilot module. It prompted discussion on how students can become agents of their financial wellness.
Derrick Scott, campus ministry director at Campus to City Wesley Foundation, based at the University of North Florida, brought the mental health crisis to the attention of the foundation’s staff and volunteer leaders, who encouraged him to envision a solution and apply for a grant to fund it.
He did, and the foundation awarded $100,000 from its Future Generations Fund to develop the initiative.
“I am weary because college students are experiencing the greatest mental health crisis I’ve ever seen,” Scott wrote in a blog post late last year. “And after 18 years of campus ministry, they continue to be the first and last people I think about every day.”
Providing hope, building community
The pilot module launched last fall to a five-student cohort that attended eight sessions over 10 weeks.
The students came from the Campus to City and Gator Wesley foundations, but the goal is to provide the sessions — which were designed for all students, regardless of faith background — to United Methodist campus ministries and colleges across the state. Online resources will also be available to any student, anywhere.
For each session, students met via Zoom to learn concepts and ideas on a mental health topic presented by a campus ministry director and members of the design team. Topics included “Understanding Anxiety, Depression and Other Mental Illness,” “Spiritual Trauma” and “Peer Support.”
“I am weary because college students are experiencing the greatest mental health crisis I’ve ever seen, and after 18 years of campus/college ministry, they continue to be the first and last people I think about every day.” — Derrick Scott, Executive Director, Campus to City Wesley Foundation
The Rev. Ivan Gonzalez, a mental health clinician and United Methodist pastor, attended each session to participate in the discussion and support students’ wellness as they ventured into emotionally taxing topics.
In the final session, “Tools for the Journey,” students explored how they can intentionally care for their mental health in their daily lives.
“We … wanted to create something that had more of a long-term look as the session for wrapping up and how people can utilize skills they’ve learned or that they already possess,” Oldham said.
Her mental health toolbox includes activities that support both physical and spiritual wellness.
“I do things like journaling, going on walks,” she said. “Participating in yoga was kind of an overlap between the two — things like that.”
Allison Corwin, a graduate of Flagler College in St. Augustine and a former Campus to City student now pursuing graduate social work studies at the University of South Florida in Tampa, helped Scott lead the design team. In the process, she was able to uncover some insights into what helps her achieve mental wellness.
“I kind of had a moment in that session where I was like, ‘Oh, I should be doing that again,’” Corwin said. “That was actually really helpful for me.”
And with each session, Corwin noticed a shift in focus. Originally, the sessions were more content-driven — presenting information the design team felt participants needed to know. But as the pilot progressed, students expressed a desire for more candid conversations.
“They still wanted the content, but they also wanted to have community,” Corwin said. “And they wanted community that was different than their church community, their school community, because within those communities, they had yet (to find) a space to talk about their mental health.”
Subsequent sessions were tailored to develop that sense of community around mental health.
“They wanted to open up about things they wanted to talk about, things we were giving them and how it applies to them within their lives,” Corwin said. “And I do think that was beautiful.”
Tailored resources
Before creating the pilot module, Corwin and the design team interviewed eight mental health professionals — all of whom were licensed counselors or clinical social workers — to gain a better understanding of student mental health needs and the best tools to support them.
From that feedback, Corwin and the team learned that pediatric and adult psychological practices often don’t provide services tailored to the mental health needs of young adults because they’re at a transitional stage in life.
“I found that really interesting, knowing that there is a shortage in resources,” Oldham said. “And then also the resources that are available aren’t always necessarily directed toward or planned in mind of our specific age group.”
Social media is also a factor. Some of the professionals viewed it as a damaging force, based on studies that have found evidence social media can increase anxiety and depression in young people.
Conversely, other professionals noted how that space can offer a forum for creating awareness and normalizing conversations about mental health issues, especially since young adults spend significant time online.
“And while there was this side of mental health professionals who were like, ‘social media is bad,’” Corwin said, “there was also this side (that) was like, ‘honestly, it speaks the language of this generation that we are working with.’”
Next steps
Participating students each received a $500 stipend to pay for additional mental health resources —counseling sessions with a psychologist or psychiatrist, a meditation app or retreat, reading material on mental wellness, or other resources.
“They still wanted the content, but they also wanted to have community … that was different than their church community, their school community, because within those communities, they had yet (to find) a space to talk about their mental health.” — Allison Corwin, The Wellness Project design team member
And in addition to providing the eight-session module to more students going forward, The Wellness Project team is planning to:
- Build out two servers on Discord, an instant messaging and voice-over-IP app for group conversations. Design team members, mental health professionals and campus ministry directors will facilitate those discussions.
- Explore the group chat platform Geneva as an option to continue sharing resources on mental health among project participants, design team members and campus ministry directors.
- Create on-demand mental health resources for students. Corwin will be creating content for YouTube, where she will continue discussions with mental health professionals.
- Offer events for student leaders that focus on ways to support their peers and for parents, leaders and pastors on their role in the mental health journeys of the young adults in their lives.
Participants and ministry leaders say they have already learned a lot, particularly that mental health wellness is an ongoing pursuit.
“One of the things we talked about … was how mental health and wellness is a journey,” Corwin said. “It’s not this thing that, you know, you go to therapy for six weeks and it’s over. It’s this thing that you’re constantly working on.”