Mental health training on college campuses does more than teach skills. It fosters a culture of care that encourages collective engagement and shared ownership, responsibility, and stewardship for student well-being.
The Jed Foundation (JED) believes that mental health training works best when it equips faculty, staff, and students with skills to identify and support young people who are struggling. When you train your campus community, you create multiple layers of support — helping people identify students who may be struggling, contributing to suicide prevention efforts, and strengthening the safety net that protects everyone’s mental health. A strategically implemented mental health training program is an integral element of a comprehensive, campuswide approach to protecting student mental health.
A note on terminology: In the past, these programs have been referred to as “gatekeeper training.” The term “gatekeeper” can feel intimidating and suggest a burden of authority that many people aren’t comfortable with. By simply calling it “mental health training,” we help normalize these important conversations and make support feel more accessible to everyone.
Whether your campus is developing new mental health training programs or refreshing existing ones, consider the following implementation steps.
Conduct a Needs Assessment
Implementation requires a clear and structured approach from the beginning. The first step is to perform a needs assessment that examines what’s working well in your current support systems and identifies opportunities to better serve your students.
Your campus can establish a committee that evaluates current training, centralizes training efforts, and assesses existing attitudes and campus climate around supporting and referring students in distress. The committee can determine how to ensure training will most effectively reach groups of faculty, staff, and students.
Know Who to Involve in Training
A training program should eventually reach everyone in your campus community, but start with the people who connect with students most often, such as:
- Faculty and academic advisers who are often the first point of contact for students seeking support or guidance.
- Support staff (e.g., dining, housekeeping, campus safety officers) who are in contact with students often.
- Student groups, including residence hall advisers, athletes, and representatives from student government, Greek-letter organizations, and on-campus cultural organizations. Students from these groups can serve as mental health ambassadors within their communities and help peers seek support.
Know the Essential Components of Mental Health Training
There is no one-size-fits-all mental health training that’s best for all colleges and universities. The most impactful training will center the needs of your campus, drawing on the findings from your needs assessment.
Although specific elements will vary, every foundational mental health training program should teach participants to do the following:
- Identify at-risk students: Training must teach participants to recognize warning signs, risk factors, and indicators of mental health concerns, including depression, anxiety, and signs of distress. This knowledge enables community members to notice when students may need support.
- Engage and refer: Effective training equips trainees with conversation starters and supportive language to approach students compassionately and initiate conversations. Training should also emphasize referring students to the appropriate campus resources, such as counseling centers, crisis hotlines, and academic support.
- Provide resources: Trainees must have access to resources that summarize key points from the training and offer additional information to learn more. The materials should be readily available for trainees to refer to when they offer help to a young person. Resources might include emergency contact information for on- and off-campus crises, a directory of support options, and a list of warning signs for quick reference. For examples of how to organize these resources, explore Red Folders from Stonehill College and University of Colorado Denver.
- Focus on your students’ needs: A successful training will recognize the unique needs of your campus community. Your program should draw on your school’s data around help seeking and reflect the cultural perspectives of your students and the specific challenges they face. This personalized approach ensures that your mental health training resonates with and supports all members of your campus community.
Weigh the Utility of a Train-the-Trainer Model
Some campuses choose to train faculty, staff, and student leaders across departments to facilitate sessions rather than relying only on counseling center staff to run all of the training. This train-the-trainer model offers multiple benefits:
- Increased number of available trainers, making it feasible to educate more campus community members
- Tailored sessions that can be customized to the unique needs of certain student groups, such as faculty trainers who can adapt the content to address managing mental health crises in online learning environments
- Broadened reach and more widespread participation when community members lead training, signaling a collective investment in mental health
There are some potential downsides of the train-the-train model to consider. Some schools may be concerned about inconsistent quality of training delivered by campus members with varying levels of expertise. To address this concern, consider establishing an oversight committee. You might also use feedback surveys and assessments to ensure participants consistently receive the same information about identifying, intervening, and referring students when necessary.
If a formal train-the-trainer model isn’t feasible, consider expanding mental health training using a co-facilitation model. Typically, this model pairs one facilitator with experience or prior training in student mental health, such as a member of the counseling center, with a campus community member who brings interest and commitment to student well-being, such as a residence life director. These trainings are most impactful when co-facilitated by peers or colleagues in the same demographic group as participants, such as faculty leading faculty trainings or student leaders training other students.
Design Flexible Modes of Delivery
Varied delivery formats increase engagement and make the learning experience accessible to all participants. Options may include:
- In-person and virtual training: Real-time, interactive sessions foster connection and discussion. Participants can role-play, discuss real-life situations, and learn from one another.
- Asynchronous learning: On-demand modules allow participants to complete training independently, which accommodates busy schedules and different time zones.
Whatever format you choose, encourage participants to practice what they’ve learned in realistic scenarios. When people can apply new skills in situations that feel authentic, they retain information better and feel more confident stepping in to help when it really matters. Also, provide participants with a curated set of printable guides or online resources for ongoing learning.
Increase Engagement and Participation
Encouraging participation in training requires both top-down support and creative engagement strategies:
- Administrative endorsement: Gain buy-in from campus leadership to widely promote your training. Executive support signals the importance of mental health as a campuswide initiative.
- Safe learning environments: Faculty and staff may feel uncertain about mental health conversations. Help them see training as a way to feel more confident and prepared. When people have practical tools and clear guidance, those difficult conversations become much more manageable.
- Human resources collaboration: Your human resources team can be invaluable in weaving mental health training into the fabric of your campus culture. They can help make training a mandatory part of new staff and faculty orientation and establish regular refresher sessions to keep everyone updated on the latest approaches for supporting students.
- Marketing your achievements: Showcase the widespread reach of your program in campuswide communications or other marketing materials. Once your program is underway, you can highlight key data points, such as the number of staff members trained, or share testimonials from participants who have completed your program. By doing so, you’re likely to get more people engaged in your training.
Track Training Effectiveness and Engagement
Measuring the impact of mental health training helps you improve and sustain a training program. Consider these assessment tools and techniques:
- Pre- and post-training assessments: Administer short surveys to participants before and after training. Create QR codes that link directly to your surveys so participants can quickly access and complete them anonymously. Data from the responses, such as increases in participants’ awareness of mental health concerns and their confidence to intervene, can help you gauge the efficacy of your training.
- Engagement and demographic tracking: Analyze participation data to identify which groups or departments are engaging with the training and which would benefit from additional outreach. With these insights, you can use targeted strategies to make sure everyone on your campus has access to important training and resources.
If you have a research or evaluation team on your campus, consider partnering with them to analyze insights that guide your future direction. Ongoing feedback and evaluation helps you continuously adapt your training to meet changing needs.
Explore Additional Resources for Campus Mental Health Training
Your campus has many options for mental health training. You might develop a customized approach such as Ohio State’s REACH suicide prevention training program. Or you can explore the Suicide Prevention Resource Center’s Best Practice Registry for expert-reviewed programs that align with current suicide prevention strategies and address key risk factors. Some of the most commonly used programs include QPR and Mental Health First Aid.
You might partner with JED formally in interactive workshops, such as our You Can Help workshop series with a train-the-trainer option, or in our JED Campus and JED Campus Fundamentals programs. JED also offers the following support:
- Prepare Students with Practical Skills: Our Brave Talk digital training, developed with Maybelline New York, offers a free 10-minute version and a free 90-minute session for deeper engagement.
- Navigate Crises with Expert Support: Our Postvention Consulting Services provide guidance for institutions in crisis response and post-crisis healing.
- Equip Educators: Our Faculty Guide offers simple, evidence-based ways educators can support student mental health.
Whatever path you choose, remember that flexibility is key — there’s no single approach that works for every campus community.