Post-Secondary Mental Health Consortia

The Academic Resilience Consortium is an association of faculty, professionals, and students in higher education, and includes representatives of learning services, counselling services, advising programs, academic departments, bridge programs, etc., who are interested in understanding and promoting student resilience.

The Association for University and College Counselling Center Directors (AUCCCD) is a not-for-profit professional network that nurtures leadership growth and achievement. In support of higher education’s mission, AUCCCD aims to innovate, inform, and champion mental health in higher education, prioritizing advocacy for counselling and psychological concerns. AUCCCD membership is institution-based, with each member college or university designating one director as its representative. AUCCCD encompasses over 900 universities and colleges across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. 

Canada’s Student Mental Health Network is network of post-secondary student and alumni volunteers across Canada who adopt a “for-students, by-students” participatory approach to provide a central online location for students to access reliable education, tools, and resources to promote their mental health and wellbeing.

Campus Mental Health: Community of Practice is a joint initiative between the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services (CACUSS) and the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA). The Community of Practice has developed an interactive inventory website for use by colleges, institutes, and universities in Canada to self-evaluate and plan action to systematically supporting mental health on their campus.

Initiated in 2016, the Canadian Health Promoting Universities and Colleges Network aims to engage higher education institutions to advance the health-promoting universities and colleges movement within Canada.

The Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education – Société canadienne pour l’étude de l’enseignment supérieur (CSSHE-SCEES) is a charitable organization whose mission is to promote the study of higher education in Canada, by uniting a community of faculty, researchers, practitioners, and graduate students from various backgrounds. CSHHE offers an annual conference, webinar series, and other learning opportunities. CSHHE also publishes the Canadian Journal of Higher Education, an open access and peer-reviewed journal that highlights emerging trends in higher education and explores various levels of analysis to deepen insights into Canadian higher education.  

The Centre for Innovation on Campus Mental Health (CICMH) is a partnership project involving Colleges Ontario, the Council of Ontario Universities, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, the College Student Alliance and the Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario Division. CICMH aims to help Ontario’s colleges and universities enhance their capacity to support student mental health and well-being. CICMH’s stakeholders include Ontario’s post-secondary mental health service providers and partners, specifically, student services, counselling, accessibility, health, faculty, administration, student leaders and community partners.

The Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) is a multidisciplinary, Practice-Research-Network (PRN) focused on providing information on the mental health of college students. CCMH connects practice, research, and technology to benefit students, mental health providers, administrators, researchers, and the public. Through the collaborative efforts of over 550 college and university counselling centers and supportive organizations, CCMH has been able to build one of the largest databases on college student mental health. CCMH also actively develops clinical tools, reports, and research using this data.

Publications 

The Educational Advisory Board (EAB) is a consultancy firm based out of Washington, DC with a mission to strengthen education. EAB has supported over 2,800 organizations internationally and provides services from K-12 to post-secondary education. EAB assists post-secondary institutions with their recruitment and expansion objectives, ways to improve student retention and graduate rates, and further strategic initiatives.  

Frayme leads an international network that connects mental health, health and social services working with youth and young adults to accelerate the integration and implementation of youth care in Canada and around the world.

Projects 

Healthy Campus Alberta is a community of practice (CoP) that serves to partner with campuses and stakeholders interested in postsecondary mental health and addiction from across the province of Alberta. Its vision is to “educate, collaborate and advocate to transform culture and create caring campus communities throughout the province of Alberta”. The Healthy Campus Alberta Community strives to create an inclusive, collaborative, and integrated approach to mental health and wellness.

Healthy Campus Saskatchewan is a Community of Practice composed of 19 post-secondary institutions across Saskatchewan. The group was born out of a desire to work together more collaboratively to support the health and wellbeing of students enrolled in post-secondary education programs across the province. Their vision is to create healthy, resilient campus communities where students feel safe, supported, and have the knowledge, tools, and resources they need to achieve both their personal and academic goals.

Healthy Minds | Healthy Campuses (HM|HC) is a province-wide community of practice (CoP) comprised of a group of people in British Columbia who share the common goal of promoting mental health and healthier relationships with alcohol and other psychoactive substances at post-secondary institutions. HM|HC stakeholders include students, campus professionals, faculty, administrators, and community partners. The HM|HC initiative is driven by CoP members and a strong focus on meaningful connections and knowledge exchange. HM|HC value local wisdom in combination with evidence-based practices and encourage innovation across the full matrix of action and research—including empowering people, providing services and supports, and modifying environmental structures and conditions. In recognition of the complex, interrelated factors that influence mental health and the harms related to substance use HM|HC applies a socioecological lens that identifies multiple strategies at multiple levels. With this wider lens, HM|HC has gone from a focus on individuals, illnesses, and problems to a focus on settings, contexts, and health promotion.

Based at the University of Michigan and Boston University, The Healthy Minds Network for Research on Adolescent and Young Adult Mental Health (HMN) is led by a multi-disciplinary team of scholars from public health, education, medicine, psychology, and information sciences, many of whom are affiliated with the University’s Comprehensive Depression Center. HMN  aims to improve the mental and emotional well-being of young people through innovative, multidisciplinary scholarship. HMN addresses the connection between the mental health of adolescents and young adults and their health behaviours, physical health, and social, educational, and economic outcomes. Through an array of research projects, the network serves as a resource for secondary and higher education administrators, researchers, clinicians, policymakers, and the public.

Research

The Higher Education Mental Health Alliance (HEMHA) is a partnership providing leadership to advance college student mental health. HEMHA affirms that the issue of college student mental health is central to student success, and therefore is the responsibility of higher education. Accordingly, HEMHA provides leadership to consider college student mental health issues at a strategic level, identify and share mental health resources, promote full community engagement in the mental health continuum of care, advocate for improvements in college student mental health, develop and disseminate resources and guides and to endorse evidence-based best practices.

Projects

JED Foundation is a nonprofit organization that aims to protect emotional health and prevent suicide in teens and young adults by partnering with high schools and colleges to strengthen mental health, substance abuse and suicide prevention programs and systems. JED Foundation equips teens and young adults with the skills and knowledge to help themselves and each other.

The Network for Improvement and Innovation in College Mental Health (NIICH) aims to catalyze a collective of diverse individuals, institutions of higher education, and entities working together in pursuit of the best overall health for college students through innovation and quality improvement. NIICH is a learning network for facilitating the testing of new approaches to achieving better results, co-creation of innovations, and rapid spread of key learnings. The network offers a range of engaging resources and educational activities focused on: quality improvement methods; using data and measurement to drive improvement efforts; and effective approaches to leading teams, overcoming barriers, and facilitating change.

Resource Library

The Observatoire sur la santé mentale étudiante en enseignment supérieur (OSMÉES), is a Québec-based organization dedicated to mobilizing knowledge to promote the mental well-being of students throughout Québec’s higher education system. Established in 2023 and co-led by the University of Sherbrooke, OSMÉES brings together over 275 members, including researchers, students, and staff from various higher education institutions across Québec.   Through Québec research funds, OSMÉES grants up to $5,000 to institutions in Québec who want to launch a project on student mental health in post-secondary institutions. Learn more about OSMÉES projects here. 

Orygen, The National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health’s primary work is to: Deliver cutting-edge research, policy development, innovative clinical services, and evidence-based training and education to ensure that there is continuous improvement in the treatments and care provided to young people experiencing mental ill-health.

Research

The Postsecondary Education Partnership — Alcohol Harms (PEP-AH) is comprised of a group of universities and colleges from across Canada, partnered with the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) and Universities Canada. PEP-AH is a network of campuses that have their own capacity for researching and fully understanding the drinking culture on campus, as well as the best practices to reduce harms. PEP-AH’s evidence-based framework guides members through a range of activities that, when undertaken simultaneously and continuously, work towards one goal: to reduce alcohol harms on campus.