Mental Illness Among College Students

Racial and ethnic groups, for example, are less likely to seek out or utilize mental health resources because they “may be more likely to seek support from personal networks”, and have less access to the same resources when compared to whites (Olson, Koscak, Foroudi, Mitalas, & Noble, 2016, p. 49). Foreign students present a noteworthy challenge in identifying them for mental health needs due to the likelihood of a language barrier. Although students may speak and understand English, the possibility for miscommunication still exists. The final group to keep an eye on is the Greek life participants due to the high risk of suicide in this particular group (Olson, Koscak, Foroudi, Mitalas, & Noble, 2016). Although there are certain groups

Part of the problem contributing to this proliferation of mental health concerns may be the over protectiveness of parents on one part, in not allowing children to learn for themselves, other family dynamics, and the issue of bullying, among other factors. In addition to these factors, college students experience other factors during this stage in their lives, which contribute to mental health crises. As mentioned previously, students begin college at a point in their lives where they are potentially vulnerable to the onset of some serious mental illnesses (Pinder-Amaker & Bell, 2012). Sometimes, students start college with previously undiagnosed mental health conditions where the overwhelming act of starting and attending college can trigger a mental illness episode (Ponsford,

Since campus law enforcement, whether security personnel or sworn officers, are usually the first responders to a crisis, it is imperative for officers to have training in recognizing the signs and symptoms of an individual in crisis. Officers should also know how to properly interact and respond to individuals in crisis.
With the proliferation of mental health calls for service, and the outcry by communities in the way officers react to individuals in crisis during any type of encounter, the need for police officer to have training in responding to mentally ill persons led to the development of the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) model for police response. This is a “collaborative approach to safely and effectively address the needs of persons with mental illnesses, link them to appropriate services, and divert them from the criminal justice system if appropriate” (Watson & Fulambarker, 2012, p. 71). This forty-hour training provides police officers, dispatchers, and other first responders the necessary knowledge to recognize signs and symptoms of different mental health disorders, destigmatize mental illness, provide de-escalation techniques, and resources for providing mental health service referrals (Segal, 2014). Organizations such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) provide this training