#USIConnectingMinds Student Mental Health Online Consultation

Introduction

The Union of Students in Ireland recently held a consultation event to gather students together for a discussion on various topics related to student mental health in higher education.

This event was held online on the 26th of March, which was after the Coronavirus spread caused all higher education institutes to be closed. As a result, while there was excellent engagement and feedback from those who attended the event, we decided to put together this online consultation in order to provide an opportunity for those who couldn’t attend to be able to engage with the topics that were discussed.

USI represents students of all affiliated higher education institutes in Ireland, and we think that it is really important that students get to have their voice heard on issues that are related to them, and in particular around student mental health (we also recently conducted a study in this area, the report of which is available here). This is a really important opportunity for you to share your thoughts on the National Strategy on Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Strategy along with USI’s Mental Health Strategy. We welcome positive as well as negative feedback, although we would appreciate it if you could provide your feedback with a view to working to improve things (i.e. explain your reasons for your opinions, if you think an alternative option would be better tell us about it, etc.).

If you have any queries or comments about this process, or anything related to student mental health, please feel free to get in touch at mentalhealth@usi.ie.

This consultation will close to submissions on Thursday the 30th April at 5pm

Section One: Draft National Strategy on Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Strategy

Overview of National Student Mental Health Framework Document

This document provides an overview of the National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework. Please note that the feedback form at the end of the second document is available as an online form below – we really need as much feedback as possible to make sure that this framework works for you the students, so we would appreciate it if you could submit feedback to us on this.

Feedback form for Draft National Strategy on Mental Health and Suicide Prevention in Higher Education

 

Section Two: USI National Mental Health Strategy

 

USI mental health strategy, mandates and other work outline

This document provides an overview of the current mental health strategy of the USI, as well as additional mandates that supplement this, and other additional work that has developed from these. This strategy is due to be renewed shortly, so your feedback is important in order to ensure that the USI is working to best serve the needs of students. Please remember to click submit at the end of the feedback form.

 

 

 

Section Three: Proposed Crisis Care Plan Cards

 

 

These images provide an overview of a proposed design crisis care plan cards. These cards will fold in half to be the size of a credit card (and thus fit in your purse/wallet).  When folded, one side provides contact information for sources of help, and the other side provides a qr code which will take the user to further resources on the USI mental health webpage. When opened out, the inside section will provide space for you to write your own crisis plan. Please remember to click submit at the end of the feedback form.