The Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training has fast-tracked a 24/7 counselling platform in order to help students who are struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Here2Talk site provides options for students to talk with mental-health support over the phone, through an app, or online. The program will cost an estimated $1.5 million per year over the next three years.
Earlier in the year, the provincial government got in touch with the British Columbia Federation of Students (BCFS), then with Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) wellness and access director and BCFS campaigns coordinator Eleanor Vannan about the need for mental-health support for post-secondary students. Vannan says that the support was initially supposed to launch in September, and that the government launching it early is the result of those in power recognizing the urgent need for more mental-health support.
“[Minister of advanced education, skills and training Melanie Mark and minister of mental health and addictions Judy Darcy] have really been very aware of the scope,” says Vannan, “and, really, how far the extent of this pandemic reaches in terms of its effect on students and mental health.”
Vannan says that we need to realize that what’s happening right now as a result of COVID-19 is going to affect everyone.
“This is going to have a huge impact on, really, everyone’s mental health,” she says. “In part, we have to accept that, but we also have to be working toward strategies to really persevere, because that’s what it’s about. We’re never going to make this situation perfect.”
Vannan says that she has really started to feel the impacts of the COVID-19 restrictions recently. Just because they’re common sense and part of what we all have to do to minimize the impact of the virus doesn’t mean the mental-health aspect is as simple.
“I find that being able to meet with people and being able to help them, and give someone a hug, or hold them, and just be present with them while they’re going through something, is really important in my life,” she says.
The treatment and work Vannan has done around her own mental health allows her to cope with not being able to do those things.
“When we’re seeing people who are in a much earlier place in their journey toward improving their mental health and really working on themselves, it’s really hard to deal with,” she says. “Because now they’re isolated and they haven’t had years of building tools and coping strategies—it’s very hard.”
Vannan— who studies philosophy—draws attention to Aristotle’s work and writings about how humans are inherently social animals. Regardless of whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, that really is one of our defining features, she says.
“I think we sometimes forget that; I think we especially forget that with technology. Even for introverts, we need some level of connection with other people,” she says, “and that’s really gone.”
Vannan says that with physical distancing guidelines in place, we have to find new ways to access services such as counselling, but she recognizes the limitations inherent in counselling services conducted through methods not in person.
“To a certain extent,” she says, “as much as they can be tools to compensate and accommodate, they will never be the same thing.”
Students can access confidential counselling services by going to here2talk.ca and clicking on “call now.”