Post-secondary student mental health is in crisis: Research shows students’ mental health was adversely affected in the pandemic, and this falls on the heels of pre-existing concerns that campuses were struggling to keep up with demands for mental health services. Over the last two-and-a-half years, many people — including educators, academics, education administrators, politicians and […] … learn more→
Tag Archives: mental health

Why it’s wrong to blame online learning for causing mental health issues during COVID-19

5 ways students can foster positive mental health at university
For many students, heading off to university means moving away from home and to a new place, facing the prospect of making new friends or adjusting to larger class sizes. For some it will also mean readapting to in-person learning. Amid the normal life transitions from teenage years into adulthood, the pandemic introduced new stressors and interruptions, […] … learn more→

5 strategies employers can use to address workplace mental health issues
COVID-19 has inflicted a serious mental health toll on many U.S. workers. Like other Americans, workers have lost loved ones, connections to friends and family, and the comforts of their daily social rhythms. The pandemic has also imposed a unique set of stresses on workers, including the risks of losing their job, rapid adjustments to working from home and additional […] … learn more→

Should university instructors disclose mental health conditions? It’s complicated
The onset of what some psychologists suggest is a mental health “parallel pandemic” during COVID-19 has created new questions about how post-secondary instructors address mental health in their classrooms. The negative impact of the pandemic on mental health in Canada is clear: significant levels of self-reported anxiety have been found in 36 per cent of Canadians aged […] … learn more→

What young people want to help them recover from school closures
Children need help to recover from the disruption COVID has brought to their schooling. Much of the focus – and government funding – has been on academic catch-up. Some schools are beginning to trial adding an hour to the school day. But young people weren’t just missing out on study time during school closures. They also lost out on physical activity, […] … learn more→

Protecting mental health in childhood is urgent: what role do schools have?
In the early stages of life, children and adolescents must cope with various stressors. The beginning of compulsory schooling is one of them. It requires a change of routines in the child and the beginning of a stage with greater autonomy, without the continued support of the parents. In addition to the usual stressors, atypical situations may […] … learn more→

Climate change is harming children’s mental health – and this is just the start
With record-breaking heat waves, wildfires and floods, 2021 may be the year we finally wake up to climate change. According to the most recent assessment of the International Panel on Climate Change, the effects are now “widespread, rapid, and intensifying.” Many impacts are irreversible and changes to oceans, ice sheets and sea levels will persist for thousands of years. […] … learn more→

Students are returning to school with anxiety, grief and gaps in social skills – will there be enough school mental health resources?
Even before COVID-19, as many as 1 in 6 young children had a diagnosed mental, behavioral or developmental disorder. New findings suggest a doubling of rates of disorders such as anxiety and depression among children and adolescents during the pandemic. One reason is that children’s well-being is tightly connected to family and community conditions such as stress and financial worries. Particularly […] … learn more→

Coping with a (COVID-induced) Mental Health Crisis
It was in June 2020, three months into the lockdown in Victoria, and the longest winter I have ever seen. I realised my days consisted of either crying for hours, or just staring vacantly. I am struggling to get anything done and the only thing that I feel like doing is cleaning the entire house. […] … learn more→

Are universities encouraging students to believe hard study is bad for their mental health?
In September 2019, The Guardian headlined an article “‘The way universities are run is making us ill’: inside the student mental health crisis”. We hear similar talk on all sides. Couched in the alarming vocabulary of “crisis” and “epidemic”, data presented at conferences, at staff training sessions and in the media create a sense of panic. Politicians have also […] … learn more→