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Mental Health and Well-being play a significant role in students’ general welfare, academic performance, social life, future employment prospects, and risk of dropping out of university. Universities are critical in shaping a working environment that profoundly impacts the psychosocial risks and the general mental health and well-being of both staff and students.
Indeed, the 1986 Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion by the World Health Organization states that “The inextricable links between people and their environment constitutes the basis for a socio-ecological approach to health…Health is created and lived by people within the settings of their everyday life, where they learn, work, play, and love.” (World Health Organization, 1986)
In 2018, the University of Queensland implemented a mental health strategy and framework with the aim of better understanding mental health issues and illnesses in both staff and students in a university setting. The strategy outlined a stepped care model for mental health, which consisted of a hierarchical approach that leveraged a spectrum of interventions from a personal to community level.
The strategy was implemented from 2018 to 2020 and was further extended to 2021 with the acknowledgment that COVID-19 measures had a severe impact on mental health across the University. Born from the strategy was a number of projects, some of which remain to this day. This includes a response mechanism for crises and suicides, Mental Health First Aid courses for staff members, staff psychosocial risk management, ongoing partnerships with external mental health providers, online mental health support and resources, wellbeing activities, and the ongoing management of existing counselling services offered by Student Affairs.
Towards the end of 2021, the Mental Health Project Board, which oversaw the Mental Health Strategy, sought to seek funding for the next iteration of UQ’s Mental Health Strategy from 2023 to 2025. The proposal acknowledged the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a greater need to focus on embedding mental health and wellbeing into everyday practice, policies and decision-making on an organisational level. Furthermore, the proposal emphasised the need for the whole community approach to promote a sense of belonging and reduce stigma around mental health issues.
Due to tight budget constraints under various funding pools, the next iteration of the Mental Health Strategy under that proposal was never funded, and the board was dissolved in 2022. Since this time, there has been no university-wide strategy or framework dedicated to mental health and wellbeing for both staff and students.
In 2024, both the UQ Union and the University of Queensland acknowledge the need to continually review and monitor the mental health needs of both students and staff. While the Mental Health Strategy had its flaws (i.e., overbearing governance), there were still elements of the strategy that had tremendous potential. For a complex organisation like UQ to promote mental health, a framework that engages the university community is needed to create a holistic, healthier mental setting. To this end, both organisations in 2024 have broadly agreed to create working groups to better the overall direction of mental health and wellbeing at UQ.
The UQ Union is committed to formulating an action plan with the University that aims to put mental health and well-being at the forefront of policy and decision-making, ensuring all organisational units are supported in their mental health initiatives and programs, and use a whole community approach to promote a healthy university setting for all.
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