UNC already has two student mental health programs, Rethink and Active Minds. Sridhar wants her program, Mental Health Ambassadors, to help train students more professionally and to be a gathering space for all groups.
“There wasn’t really any infrastructure program that already existed to do that kind of training,” Sridhar said. “We decided that a mental health ambassadors program would be a great way to get other mental health groups on campus involved and basically be a way to integrate that kind of professional training, while having a program that can serve as a support network on campus.”
Sridhar said the ambassadors program will operate differently than other groups by requiring ambassadors to do more outreach presentations and focus on skills training and stress and conflict management. She said she wants to include professional development opportunities for the ambassadors by connecting them with graduate and doctoral students studying psychology or mental health.
“But really, at the heart of it, (this) is a program that can serve as an advisory board to (Counseling and Psychological Services) but still do its mission independently,” she said.
Tara Bohley, program coordinator at the UNC School of Social Work, helped establish UNC’s Mental Health First Aid, a public education program designed to train faculty and staff on how to assist someone experiencing mental illness or a mental health problem.
Bohley said students have shown interest in mental health training after learning about the training for faculty and staff.
She said the Healthy Minds Study, a survey examining mental health among college students, showed students felt they didn’t have a safe place to talk about mental health and substance abuse.
“Just like we can talk about physical health, we can talk about diabetes or we can talk about cancer, we should be able to talk about other illnesses related to our mental health,” Bohley said.
