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<\/a>Part of the reason discussing mental-health issues is so prevalent among students is that many are away from their families to study, and even if they\u2019re not, being a student is often very isolating, says Umulisa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn my opinion, it\u2019s the age where people are more vulnerable and susceptible to a number of issues due to stress around education and becoming more responsible,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Umulisa says the stigma around mental-health concerns has decreased. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople are becoming more open-minded,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s always been a stigma around mental health.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Umulisa says resources in the mental-health field begin with creating job opportunities, and the job opportunities begin with proper courses being offered at post-secondary institutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have Psychology, but that is just not enough,\u201d she says, also pointing to the Mental Health and Addictions program at Camosun. \u201cWe need to create job opportunities for people who study in this field in order to have the resources needed for students to operate fully without being blocked by the fact that they\u2019re stressed, or they can\u2019t think, or they suffer.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Umulisa says that where she comes from\u2014Malawi\u2014it\u2019s still very taboo to talk about mental health, but she says there\u2019s no reason mental health shouldn\u2019t matter just as much as physical health. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI feel like people have realized that not everybody can operate on high energy and high power all the time,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The CCSS would love to see the federal or provincial government provide more support in the form of clinics, psychiatrists, and counsellors that students can use without stigma, Umulisa says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
CASA chair Adam Brown points to recent statistics (previously reported in the January 23 issue of Nexus<\/em>) published in the 2016 National College Health Assessment Survey. The survey of 43,780 students from across Canada found that 18.4 percent of students who participated in the survey had \u201creported being diagnosed or treated by a professional for anxiety,\u201d says Brown, and that 2.1 percent of students who participated in the survey had attempted suicide. 2.1 percent of students may not seem like a large number at face value, he says, but when you consider how many post-secondary students are in Canada (2,051,865 in 2016\/17, according to Statistics Canada) Brown calls the number \u201cstaggering.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSuicide should never be an option,\u201d says Brown. \u201cIt\u2019s really disappointing to see that government doesn\u2019t step up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brown says the financial barriers students face can make the mental-health complications they experience far worse; CASA is aiming to alleviate some of that through similar benefits provided by the government to people with permanent disabilities, says Brown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnother part of that is increasing the Canada student grants for students with permanent disabilities by 50 percent, similarly, to accommodate for an increase in demand by students with short-term mental-health concerns,\u201d says Brown, adding that mental health complications are often episodic in nature, so CASA would like the government to take into account that students have often passed the fee deadline for their courses when they become unable to attend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Umulisa says that she realizes that change can\u2019t happen immediately, and points out that the CCSS offers counselling services to students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI understand [the government providing more resources] is something that\u2019s going to take a long time,\u201d says Umulisa. (Umulisa points out that online counselling is available to Camosun students through the CCSS\u2019 health and dental plan; at mystudentplan.ca, available through the CCSS website, Camosun students can receive the confidential online video counselling.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brown says that Statistics Canada collecting more data on student mental health is important; this way, government funding can be allocated in a very targeted way, and the government will be able to \u201ccraft better-quality mental-health supports.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The cards that were passed out to students at Camosun and other campuses, where they wrote about why mental health was important to them, will be given to minister of health Adrian Dix on Tuesday, February 26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c2.1 percent having attempted suicide is so concerning,\u201d says Brown. \u201cAnd we really need to see action from the federal government.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) held the #StudentsLetsAct campaign from Wednesday, January 30 to Friday, February 1. The Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) was part of the campaign; they passed out 500 heart-shaped cards to students, who then wrote about why mental-health issues are important to them on the cards. CCSS external executive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,227],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-february-20-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17172,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17170\/revisions\/17172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}