Members of an Iowa State task force on student mental health are working on individual objectives of a university-level plan to guide support for students in need. Through a partnership with the Jed Foundation, a nonprofit that helps colleges and universities develop plans to enhance the mental health of students, the task force identified strengths and areas of need.
The task force's eight teams are meeting regularly to work on 18 objectives this fiscal year. The four-year process -- made possible when the project was selected as one of 19 proposals funded through the 2022-31 strategic plan -- began last year with students across campus taking a needs assessment. More than 80 possible objectives were submitted for consideration -- not all will be implemented -- after an on-campus visit by a Jed representative to review the data and provide guidance and suggestions.
"About a third of them are things we had already started on and some of them are already complete," said student wellness director Brian Vanderheyden. "Mental health takes a comprehensive, all-campus approach to address all the factors that go into it."
Meeting objectives
The implementation phase began during fall semester and will last two years. Task force members have various roles on campus and bring expertise and knowledge. The group includes vice presidents, faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students, and the smaller teams enlist help from other campus experts as needed. Vanderheyden said the task force will implement a majority of the objectives while remaining flexible to address emerging needs.
"Some of the objectives are long-term goals that may go into the next year," Vanderheyden said. "The objectives we already were doing need to increase in scope so they can be more beneficial and successful."
Objectives to accomplish include:
- Expand and standardize components of Cyclone Support. Cyclone Support aims to boost student success by increasing student readiness to ask for help and streamline their ability to connect to care.
- Enhance education for faculty and staff about students with mental health concerns.
- Increase support for substance use training and education.
- Expand the centralized mental health training for the campus and enlarge the team that conducts trainings.
Vanderheyden said the needs assessment often reaffirmed what was known about Iowa State students.
"There is a pretty big gap in students' perceptions around the stigma of seeking mental health help and the reality of it," he said. "Students perceived that other students would think less of them, but when you ask students if they would support someone who seeks help, over 99% say they would."
Working with the Jed Foundation gives Iowa State access to its "playbook," a collection of strategies and best practices around mental health that Iowa State can follow or tweak. Vanderheyden said some teams working on objectives contacted other universities to discuss implementation. He said the task force hopes to follow other universities and develop a website that lists the objectives and posts periodic progress reports.
What's next?
Implementation -- completing more objectives -- continues through 2026. The fourth year involves a second benchmark assessment to measure progress and impact since year one.
"In that final year we will do some evaluation as well as have an opportunity to map out the next few years of the plan," Vanderheyden said. "We then move into alumni status with the Jed Foundation and retain a connection."
