One in three Canadians will personally experience a mental health issue in their lifetime, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association.
Those numbers are even more striking for students. Reports of overcrowded counselling centres and year-long wait lines, plus the crisis-intervention strategy implemented at most university health and counselling centres, certainly reflect a rising number of students in mental health distress.
But the number of people trained in mental health first aid (MHFA)—a course designed to teach the basics of recognizing, assessing, and responding to mental health emergencies—doesn’t reflect the prevalence of mental health issues.
According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, only 100,000 Canadians are trained in MHFA.
At Carleton, all campus safety officers are trained in both ASIST, a suicide intervention certification, and MHFA. For residence fellows, completion of the MHFA course is now a mandatory part of their training.
But the Carleton University Student Emergency Response Team (CUSERT) is only required to have physical first aid training, according to CUSERT. Even though they receive and respond to the same emergency calls as campus safety officers, potentially arriving on the scene of a student facing a mental health emergency, these student leaders have no MHFA training.
More students and faculty should also be encouraged to a complete a MHFA course. With more awareness of the basics in responding to mental health crises, it will be more likely for distressed students on campus to receive the support they need.
