Enid Weiner, MSW, Ed.D.

How to Create Higher Education Support Services for Students with Mental Health Disabilities: Making Change Happen Enid Weiner, MSW, Ed.D.

Mission Statement • Mission statement and goals • Maximizing their educational experience • Encouraging independence • Providing reasonable accommodations • Educating campus community

Asking for Assistance • Soliciting the support of faculty, staff and students • Developing, maintaining and nurturing the support of your colleagues • Not being the lone voice in the wilderness

Knowing your community • Knowing your student population • Understanding their educational trajectory • Knowing about the different mental health disabilities and their impact on the students’ health and well being • Knowing campus resources • Knowing community resources

Inviting Students to Link with Your Office • Having a welcoming service • Informing students about how to connect • Advertising in different ways • Being easily accessible • Removing cumbersome policies and procedures

Never Giving Up • Not losing hope when obstacles arise • Modelling yourself after students’ tenacity • Being a positive thinker

Getting Good Documentation • Having documentation from a medical doctor or registered psychologist • Ascertaining if: • disability is temporary or permanent • how long the practitioner has known the student • if there are additional disabilities • asking to describe their stengths • permission from student to talk with practitioner if required

Confronting Stigma • One of the most stigmatized group • As a disability counsellor for students with mental health disabilities, expect to be stigmatized • Instructors not taking your recommendations seriously • Your program not being advertised as thoroughly as other services

Having Support from the Top Down • Need support of your boss, your boss’s boss and all the way up the chain • Need support of faculty who hold a lot of weight around accommodations, grades

Arranging Annual Orientations • Important to have an orientation for all students with disabilities during orientation week, as well as an orientation for students with mental health disabilities

Not Yielding to Systemic Barriers • Be cautious of policies, practices and procedures that discriminate against students with mental health disabilities, even within the disability field

Gaining Knowledge • Gaining knowledge from • Listening to the students’ lived experiences • Attending professional development sessions • Listening to your constituents who include the rest of the campus community • Keeping up with the literature

Empowering Students • Use any opportunity to bring these students together through • workshops, • Groups • Peer led groups • Having a list serve • Having holiday parties, graduation parties

Hiring the Right Professional Staff • Having experience in the adult mental health field • Knowing how to deal with crisis • Being creative, taking initiative, being able to multi task and being a team member • Setting boundaries • Having a sense of humour

Advocating for Students • Knowing when to advocate but also teaching the skills of self-advocacy • Advocating in a realistic way – not creating learned helplessness • Knowing their strengths and capitalizing on them

Presenting Workshops,Lectures • Taking an active role and leading the way in offering workshops and lectures to various stakeholders both on and off campus • students, staff, faculty, administrators, families, consumer survivors, professionals, agencies and organizations off campus

Proving these Students are Capable • Having data to provide facts about number of graduates, level of education, their grades compared to general population of students • Finding a way to have them play a role in your service • Offering them scholarships and bursaries

Ensuring Educational Support not Treatment • Differentiating between offering clinical support (through counselling services) and being an educational support program. • Given the increasing number of students self-identifying, it is important to be clear about what you do and what you do not do.

Networking, Networking, Networking • Forming and maintaining key relationships with people on campus • Rewarding staff who have gone beyond the call of duty – awards, luncheons, honourable mention, thank-you notes • Being available to consult with these individuals when they need your support

Enid Weiner, MSW, Ed.D.