Post-Secondary Surveys

Through a collaboration between CACUSS’ Campus Mental Health Community of Practice (CoP) and the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC), this report describes the in-depth results of a survey of 69 Canadian post-secondary institutions regarding the student mental health challenges and opportunities experienced due to COVID-19 during the 2020-2021 academic year and the needs foreseen for the fall 2022 term.

This webinar by Dr. Brooke Linden (Queen’s University) explores the utility of the Post-Secondary Student Stressors Index in evaluating and monitoring student stressors and shares the experience from a participating campus, Dr. Janine Olthius (University of New Brunswick). The talk also explores the implications of the delivery of universal, online mental health promotion via Canada’s Student Mental Health Network.

Professor Guy Faulkner and Kelly Wunderlich (School of Kinesiology, UBC) present on the Canadian Campus Wellbeing Survey (CCWS) with an overview of results from the cohort of British Columbian institutions participating in the winter/spring of 2020.

The presentation provides an overview of provincial results, demonstrates the feedback mechanism through which data is communicated to institutions, and highlights examples of how the CCWS research database is being used.  Perspectives on the tableau interface through which results are communicated (Jeff Burrow, University of Toronto) and how the CCWS is being used by one institution (Matt Dolf, University of British Columbia) will be shared.  A final discussion on the potential to use the CCWS to inform institutional practices and programming is facilitated.

To examine the impact of COVID-19 on mental health more thoroughly, using a broader range of longitudinal clinical data, the Center for Collegiate Mental health (CCMH) has developed a five-part blog series to describe the impact of COVID-19 on college student mental health from multiple perspectives. While surveys offer an important perspective and provide an immediate snapshot of data, CCMH data is gathered methodically over time and then examined retrospectively. While this method requires patience for data to accumulate, it also provides a more robust population-level perspective (among students seeking services).

The Campus Mental Health Community of Practice from the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services has been conducting surveys on the evolving needs and trends of post-secondary institution (PSI) counselling centres evolving needs over the past two years and in April 2020, the survey was modified to reflect COVID-19 realities. More than 60 PSIs participated in this survey, with representation from each of the ten provinces and territories and colleges (24%). The data compares the COVID-19 related challenges with prior data and information from emerging practices at an international level.

This report presents synthesized perspectives of campus mental health service professionals, administrations and student affairs administrators on crisis management, how to respond to most vulnerable students, ensuring accessibility, inclusion and ethos of social justice from multiple perspectives.

JED conducted an online survey with nearly 200 college and graduate students from across the country about their emotional readiness for the fall 2020 semester, given the uncertainties accompanied by COVID-19.

The Healthy Minds Network, which runs the Healthy Minds Study (HMS), in collaboration with the American College Health Association, which runs the National College Health Assessment (ACHA-NCHA), developed a new set of survey items related to students’ experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic. The new items focused on students’ attitudes, concerns, preventive behaviors, and their perceived supportiveness of college and universities related to COVID-19.

The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations released a report summarizing results from a survey of post-secondary students from across Canada on the experiences and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for this population, including mental health and wellbeing. Key findings from the report are the heightened sense of worry post-secondary students are experiencing on a range of factors including loss of income, value of online education, access to online learning, academic supports, and the threat of COVID-19 on physical health. The effectives of the pandemic are felt differently across this population. Specifically, women, visible minority students, and students living without roommates are more likely to be affected by the pandemic.

This webinar hosted by Health Minds | Healthy Campus provides an overview of the Canadian Campus Wellbeing Survey (CCWS).

This report conducted by a research team at Queen’s University, highlights common themes regarding post-secondary mental health across Canadian campuses. The report summarizes findings from a national survey of students and reviews commonalities across the academic literature and institutional policies on mental health. The report demonstrates that many of the same themes can be seen across Canadian campuses and that there is a lack of awareness about existing effective interventions to support campus mental health.