Students demand change following the loss of four Gryphons
The University of Guelph has announced its fourth student death in connection to mental illness within the span of five months. In response, fellow students and recent graduates have rallied together to spread awareness and to advocate for change.
On Mon, Jan. 23, the University published a news release that has become all too familiar for the community: “Flags to Be at Half-Mast Tuesday in Memory of Student.”
Almost immediately, members of the Facebook page Overheard at Guelph started sharing their reactions to the news. Among several comments both criticizing and defending the University’s mental health services, a number of new student-led initiatives began popping up in the feed.
One of these initiatives was an online petition initiated by Guelph alumna Connie Ly.
The Change.org petition, titled “Guelph: Stop Losing Students to Mental Illness,” asked for 2,500 signatures with the goal of bringing demands for change and transparency to the University’s administration.
At the time of publication, the petition acquired 2,616 signatures of support and the petition goal was extended to 5000 signatures.
Alyssa Logan, a history major at the University, signed the petition writing, “We need to know what is going on and we need to know what changes are coming and when. I cannot and will not lose another friend to suicide.”
Logan, who has been suffering from anxiety for eight years and more recently with chronic depression, told The Ontarion that, following each of the students’ deaths, the University’s administration sent out a mass email to students listing several on-campus mental health services and resources.
“It’s the same thing over and over again and it’s obviously not helping,” said Logan. “I know how hard it is for the University to get all of these new resources going and have better systems in place for students, but I definitely think that they just need to be more transparent in what they’re doing.”
Brenda Whiteside, associate vice-president of student affairs and chair of the Student Mental Health and Wellness Advisory Committee, agreed that the University doesn’t talk enough about the work they have been doing to meet the growing demand for resources.
Action and prevention
The Student Mental Health and Wellness Advisory Committee—comprised of staff, faculty, and student representatives—was struck in 2014 to identify gaps in the University’s programming and to create the Student Mental Health Framework, which was last updated in April 2016.
According to Whiteside, the committee is currently implementing a few programs to provide more training and support for groups on campus and is looking strategically at early warning systems.
One of the programs the committee is piloting this year is a computerized call service called Vocantas. Students participating in the pilot program will receive a call from the program that will ask a series of questions related to student wellbeing.
Based on the answers provided through the electronic service, peers trained for the program will then contact the students to address any concerns and provide additional resources.
For Nolan Polkinghorne, Artz Haüs president and Interhall Council (IHC) representative on the Student Mental Health and Wellness Advisory Committee, this kind of peer-based and preventative thinking is crucial.
“Having that kind of preventative care in place before actual crisis care is needed is very important—not only in maintaining mental health, [but also] encouraging a holistic approach to mental health,” said Polkinghorne, who encourages students to get in touch with the committee through Student Life, the Central Student Association, or IHC in order to have their voices heard.
The next committee meeting will be held on Feb. 16 and administration is in the process of planning an open town hall event in the coming weeks.
Transparency
Comments on the Overheard at Guelph page indicate that many students feel they are being kept in the dark when it comes to the amount of information the University provides in relation to student deaths and suicides, often resulting in speculation and assumptions.
In many cases, the University will not publish the cause of death of a student unless the family specifically grants permission.
Whiteside confirmed that there have been four suicides since September 2016, but was not comfortable releasing the names to The Ontarion, explaining that the main reason is out of consideration for the grieving families.
“I don’t think we would ever release something that causes the family discomfort,” said Whiteside. “At the end of the day, that’s what’s important.”
The 2015 to 2016 school year was also a struggle for the University of Guelph community, having lost five students over the course of the year. According to Whiteside, administration received criticism for not releasing equally detailed statements on each student’s death. Acknowledging these concerns, the University moved toward a more inclusive and straightforward approach.
Whiteside explained that administration is currently working with the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Ontario to understand how media messaging can be a trigger.
“The risk is that, when an individual who is feeling sad or hopeless learns that one of their peers has taken their own life, suicide may suddenly seem like a viable option,” Whiteside explained, noting a key message from CMHA Ontario.
With the prevalence of social media among postsecondary students, the rapid spread of information and commentary does not always provide hope or offer options for getting help, which is a primary consideration in the University’s communication strategy.
Demand for counselling
While the University encourages students to seek counselling, particularly when a community member passes away, a major concern among students who have signed the petition is that there are not enough on-campus counsellors to suit the current demand.
The Student Mental Health Framework reported that, between the 2012 to 2013 school year and the 2014 to 2015 school year, Counselling Services saw a 27 per cent increase from 6,651 appointments to 8,478.
According to Trish Schmidt, manager of Counselling Services on the third floor of the University Centre, the demand is only increasing.
“We saw our numbers in September increase by [approximately] 200 for what we would normally do within the fall,” said Schmidt, explaining that she hired as many new counsellors as she could, but some students still needed to wait five weeks before they could schedule an initial intake appointment.
Logan, who is currently in her third year at Guelph, told The Ontarion that she tried going to Counselling Services in her second year, but she didn’t really connect with her counsellor at the time. After experiencing a rough patch over the last year, she decided to try again at the start of the fall semester.
“I started seeing a counsellor and she was really nice, but it was four weeks between each appointment. So, I would see her and I would talk to her for an hour, then I would just have to put everything on the back burner for a month until I could get back there,” said Logan.
“With that long wait time in between, it felt like I was starting over every time.”
Schmidt explained that, in order for counsellors to see more students, appointments needed to be reduced to half an hour. Though counsellors are struggling to see students as often as they’d like, Schmidt also noted her concern regarding the negative comments from students, especially online.
“My biggest fear is that some of the comments that are made will prevent someone from seeking service. Someone might see a comment that says, ‘I had to go there and I waited eight weeks,’ or ‘the counsellor wasn’t any good.’ That’s fine. I’m open to people telling me those opinions,” she explained. “The thing I have trouble with is if it stops somebody who’s sitting in their room and feeling isolated [and] who thinks, ‘They’re not going to see me anyhow.’ That’s not accurate.”
In addition to scheduled appointments, Counselling Services also offers walk-in appointments in the afternoons from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. during the week and from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, as well as a number of group therapy sessions. Schmidt also explained that, if an individual comes into Counselling Services in a state of crisis, they can be seen by a staff member right away.
Katie McLean, a recent psychology graduate and facilitator of the blog Anxious and Alive, found the Counselling Services at the University to be very effective in helping her cope with anxiety during her studies.
“They gave me resources, they gave me mantras, [and] they gave me breathing exercises,” said McLean, noting that she did not have any trouble scheduling regular appointments at the time, but can understand the frustration of students who haven’t been as lucky.
“The criticisms are valid—the resources aren’t enough for the volume that is happening—but I really think the University is putting in what they can.”
Despite receiving a number of complaints that the University needs more counsellors, Whiteside believes that the solution isn’t that simple.
“I think the reality is, if we doubled our counsellors, we wouldn’t have enough counsellors,” said Whiteside, explaining that a number of new positions have been added over the last few years, but there has also been more of an expectation for ongoing care from both students and parents. “We have people who say, ‘I need to see a counsellor once a week every week,’ [but] that’s just not what we’re funded for.”
“I’m not walking away from adding more counsellors—right now, we don’t even have room,” she added, “but that’s just one aspect and, if that’s where we put all of our resources, we will never meet the demand.”
For students like English major Cory Lavery, who was diagnosed with depression three years ago, putting more resources into counselling services may not be the answer for all students suffering with mental illnesses.
“To be completely honest about it, specifically with depression, you don’t feel like you can. At least for me, I didn’t feel like it was worth it,” he explained. “You don’t want to get out of bed, so why would you want to go search for something,” let alone book an appointment.
Lavery expressed that the recent student initiatives, like setting up a booth on campus for more laissez-faire peer-to-peer support, make talking to someone a thousand times easier than making an appointment with a professional who has to “schedule you in.”
These kinds of alternative on-campus resources, like the Student Support Network and the Mental Health Support Group offered through Student Accessibility Services, have been helpful for many students who are more comfortable speaking with other individuals in their own peer group.
“When you go to a counsellor, they can say, ‘Yes, I’ve heard other students say that.’ But when you go to these groups, it’s more like, ‘I’m in the same [position] right now and here’s what I’m doing to get through it—maybe it will help you,’” said Logan, who attends the Mental Health Support Group meetings every Thursday.
Academic pressures
While mental health is a growing concern for students at the University of Guelph, their struggles in coping with academic pressures is not unique.
According to the National College Health Assessment released in spring 2016, 58.1 per cent of students reported that their academics had been “traumatic or very difficult to handle” within the last 12 months. Comparatively, the same study also ranked finances at 40.4 percent and sleep difficulties at 37.1 per cent—many students are likely to draw a common connection between all three factors.
Dr. Michèle Preyde, an associate professor in the College of Social and Applied Human Science at the University of Guelph, explained that, for many young people, the transition to postsecondary education, among many factors, is a stressful and drastic change that can trigger the onset of mental illnesses.
“Many youth begin post-secondary education during late adolescence. Adolescence itself is a developmental period that is characterized by efforts to increase autonomy from parents and increase reliance on peers and enormous change in several ways,” Preyde explained in an email to The Ontarion.
“It is well-known that many students have great difficulty adjusting to all the changes, including the academic pressures and responsibility, and now their classmates are all people who had high averages in high school—many youth struggle with the added pressures and may not perform as well as they had previously, which can impact their self-esteem and identity.”
For McLean, the transition from high school to university played a role in triggering her anxiety, along with moving over 3,000 km away from her family in Calgary.
“I remember so clearly going into first year and thinking I was alone,” she explained. “It felt like I was a brand new person and I didn’t know that person.”
However, knowing that peer-to-peer resources were accessible to her during the transition really helped McLean to not feel as isolated.
Logan expressed a similar sentiment, saying, “Coming to university, it felt like I had a wider group of people to connect with and I knew that out of the 20,000 students that we have here, there would be at least one person who would be going through something similar to me.”
In terms of academics, Logan found additional support through Student Accessibility Services (SAS). She explained that SAS helped her set up accommodations with her professors—for example, receiving extensions on assignments when necessary.
“Sometimes I have the best intentions to have a paper finished on time, but if I have a particularly bad week, then it definitely makes it a lot more difficult to finish that paper,” said Logan.
Preyde explained that improved accessibility for students with mental illnesses and a reduction in the perceived stigma could actually help students acknowledge their own mental health concerns and seek help during their studies.
Knowing that academics play a major role in student mental health, many students suggest that perhaps it is the overall structure or system that needs to change—something that the Student Mental Health Advisory Committee has started to look at.
“Epistemologically, [university] is where you go, you do your work, and you get tested for four hard years, then you’re qualified,” said Lavery, who struggled to keep up with his studies in first and second year due to his mental illness. “That’s an old mindset versus a new mindset where not everyone is tested in the same kind of way.”
While many suggest following in the footsteps of many Ontario universities by adding a fall reading week or reverting back to smaller class sizes, Logan presents the idea that extending each semester might help to reduce stress for all students, not just those with diagnosed mental illnesses.
“Twelve weeks is a very short period of time to cram so much information in,” Logan explained. “Even if it was just a 14-week semester, it would allow professors to go a bit slower and take more time and have some more space between papers, tests, and midterms.”
Knowledge and coping
While Preyde explained that knowledge of prevention and intervention is still evolving, “There is some evidence to suggest that improved mental health literacy and coping skills can help.”
Mental health and wellness is difficult to assess because it looks different for each and every individual, but a common piece of advice from students who are coping with mental illnesses is to talk about it.
“Talking about it will help because you’ll see, for the most part, people are there to support you and they’re there to help you as much as they can,” said Logan. “If you suffer in silence, it just makes it that much harder and mental illness is hard enough, so you can use all the support you can get.”
“Once you are actually told that [mental illness] is not as taboo as it used to be, it makes it a lot easier to deal with,” added Lavery.
Noting that one of her favourite sayings is, “It’s okay to not be okay,” McLean concluded, “I think it’s important to reduce the stigma in saying you’re still not okay, and there’s a lot of people who are like that, and there’s a lot of people who are here for you.”
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Mental Health Resources
Mental Well-being website
The Mental Well-being website offers links to a number of resources offered by the University of Guelph. Information is available on where to get help, how to increase campus involvement, and healthy living tips.
Counselling Services
University Centre, Level 3
Counselling Services are located on the third floor of the University Centre (take the elevators near the bus loop). Appointments can be schedules Monday to Friday 8:15 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. In the fall and winter semesters, a walk-in service is available from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. as well as 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Summer walk-ins are available from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Student Accessibility Services
University Centre, Level 3
Students with mental illnesses can register with Student Accessibility Services to be eligible for academic support, such as exam and and assignment accommodations, as well as peer support. The Mental Health Support group meets in UC334 on Thursdays from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Student Support Network
Raithby House
The Student Support Network is located at Raithby House—across from the cannon—and offers drop-in peer support from extensively trained student volunteers. The drop-in service operates from Monday to Friday from 12:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. and 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. during exams. It is closed during holidays, reading week, and from May to August.
Multi-Faith Resource Team
519-824-4120 Ext. 52392
The University of Guelph’s Multi-Faith Resource Team operates out of Student Life to help foster spiritual growth and understanding among community members. Representatives from diverse faith communities are available to speak with students, staff, and faculty.
Good2Talk Student Helpline
1-866-925-5454
Good2Talk is a post-secondary student helpline that is free and confidential. The bilingual 24-hour helpline can be reached at the number above or connected through 2-1-1 from any Ontario phone. This service connects university students with qualified, paid professionals with specialized training in either counselling or information and referral.
Here 24/7 Student Helpline
1-844-437-3247
The Here 24/7 helpline assists in connecting people with programs for addiction, mental health, and crisis services. The helpline also offers several drop-in locations across the Waterloo-Wellington area, which includes Guelph at 80 Waterloo Ave.
Wellness Education Centre
J.T. Powell Building, Level 2
The Wellness Education Centre is a safe space for students seeking information about health and well-being. The centre offers peer drop-in consultations, interactive programs, and can help connect you with other resources on campus.