When Lauren Brown, a PhD graduate of OISE’s Curriculum, Teaching and Learning program, decided on a research project, she knew that she wanted her study to immediately impact students. Brown, who is also Program Coordinator for the mindfulness, meditation and yoga programs at the Division of Student Life, had seen many students struggle with high levels of stress. Many factors contribute to this says Brown, including limited time and financial resources, a culture of competition and difficulty finding a sense of belonging on campus. When facilitating workshops, Brown also noticed students often don’t know when to seek help or take steps to support their mental wellbeing.
“There is a big gap in our cultural understanding of when to connect with mental wellbeing resources for our own self-care. Unfortunately, this means people often push through until they hit a crisis point,” says Brown. “We do a good job of talking about where to get support, but determining when we need support is something I have seen students struggle with.”
Brown is a recipient of the 2022 Inlight Research Fellowship, which she says boosted her confidence as a researcher and as a mature student, “It [The Fellowship] allowed me to feel like I was successful beyond my faculty, that my work and contribution was being taken seriously,” says Brown. “I also knew I had this responsibility for knowledge mobilization and translation, which pushed me to publish, attend conferences, and develop new programming on campus.”
Learn more about the Inlight Fellowship program for graduate students. Applications are now open.
Brown’s research looked specifically at undergraduate wellbeing and mental health literacy, taking a strengths-based narrative inquiry approach. The study, Brown reiterates, was not asking students to talk about the fact that they were struggling, but rather asking them how they define well-being, how they learn about it, and what they do to support it.
“I found through my research, that students don’t have a solid baseline understanding of mental health literacy that they can call on to support their wellbeing,” says Brown. “They talk about balance, and learning about wellbeing through hard fought experience, but there is a disconnect between understanding mental health and wellbeing as a continuum and knowing they can take action before things get really difficult.”
During her interviews, Brown asked study participants to “tell me about a time when you consciously decided to improve your own wellbeing,”. They would often start by telling her about going through a difficult time first.
“Young adults learn about wellbeing and mental health experientially, and part of my research was to think about how we can bring these lessons to life through stories and through peer group conversation,” says Brown.
The biggest takeaway from her project Brown says is that students have a limited knowledge about mental health literacy, and that needs to change.
Following her study, Brown has presented her research to the Division of Student Life and Health and Wellness clinical staff at U of T and has co-created a workshop with the health promotion staff for students, that is focused on prevention and early non-clinical interventions that help students advance their knowledge of mental health literacy. However, Brown notes that having this important teaching only presented in workshops privileges those students who have the time in their schedule to take it. Her next steps therefore include finding ways for her research to go beyond a workshop format and into the formal learning environment.
“For me, formalizing this process and having courses in mental health literacy is an upstream, macrolevel health equity initiative that gives students the knowledge to have in order to utilize the many resources on campus that support their mental health,” says Brown.
