U of A to implement watch program for mental health

Paul Swanson

A MOMENT TO COMPOSE The U of A’s new Helping Individuals at Risk Policy encourages students and staff to notice “warning signs” for at-risk behaviour.

In a response to campus shootings such as at Virginia Tech, the University of Alberta is working on implementing a watch program they call the "Helping Individuals at Risk Policy."

The new policy encourages individuals on campus to report on students or professors who they feel are exhibiting "at-risk behaviour." Under this initiative, the reports would be collected and analyzed by a case team which would attempt to connect isolated incidents and determine if intervention or assistance is necessary.

Dean of Students Frank Robinson argued that the policy is a needed tool to help undergrads.

"There are times in the university year when students seem to sense some desperation and do the wrong thing," Robinson said. "Sometimes students have signs that they're under stress. Sometimes those signs aren't received; contacts don't know what to do with those signs. I'm convinced that after what I've seen here we have to help students a bit more — I'm talking about suicide."

Students' Union Vice President (Academic) Leah Trueblood explained that the SU Executive initially had some concerns with the proposed program; principally the effect that an "education" campaign to ask students to report on their peers would have on campus spirit. Trueblood said that the University was taking their concerns into consideration in the final plan.

"We've worked through some of those," Trueblood explained. "Those conversations are ongoing. I think we're sympathetic to the units on campus that want to be able to report — that want to be able to take care of each other and want to be able to protect their students. But also, we want to live in a community where people don't feel like they're getting reported on."

"We appreciate that the University is making steps towards the ability to appreciate if students are having problems and are at risk," Vice President (Student Life) Nick Dehod added. "But we want to see more initiatives to ensure students never get to that place in the first instance."

"Counselling services is something that continues to be a concern. Right now it's under-resourced and has one of the worst counsellor-to-student ratios in the country. Certainly there are financial pressures on the University right now, but it is definitely something that, all things considered, I'd think would be more prioritized — especially given some of the potential increases to the cost of university that some students are facing."

Robinson said that he takes student concerns seriously, and that even with the budget cuts threatening resources he claimed that "it's loud and clear on [his] radar that we need more student counsellors."

He explained that there are two problems that need to be dealt with, and a greater number of counsellors will only solve half the problem. While they need to have the resources for when students are seeking help, they also need a plan like "Connect the Dots", a decentralized student aid system for when students don't realize that they need to seek help.

Besides the issue of students reporting on students, another major concern is the collection and retention by the University of private files on students' mental health. Brad Hamdon, the U of A's Legal Counsel, explained that the policy surrounding the collection of personal information for this initiative was designed to be sensitive to privacy, and that the files will "normally" be deleted four years from the date of the last activity on the file.

The files themselves will only be seen by the case team unless subject to a successful Freedom of Information request, a possibility that Hamdon dismisses as unlikely, asserting that in "most cases, if not all cases, we could protect the information." He said that the policy was essential as it was about helping, not punishing, and as such would not carry disciplinary power.

"There's lots of ways to discipline people and force them to do things," Hamdon said. "You've got the Code of Student Behaviour and all that, but what we felt we needed was to be able to do better was connect the dots and identify where someone was at risk and then show them the ways and opportunities they had to get help."

It is anticipated that the program will be implemented later in 2010 after an education campaign to explain the scope of the initiative to students and staff.