Recommendations

Provide diverse opportunities for online help seeking

Students exhibiting lower levels of mental wellbeing are more likely to benefit from online help seeking programs, especially if they are tailored to students’ wants and needs (e.g., anxiety, time management, work-life balance, depression, and stress). Changing delivery services to include online help seeking provides students with diverse options to promote help seeking behaviours.

Encourage and promote peer support groups

With trades students more inclined to seek out support from informal (i.e., peers) versus formal (i.e., counsellor) sources, peer support is a great avenue that encourages help seeking behaviours. Whether it be a buddy system program or peer helper network, both are set up to promote help seeking behaviour. To learn more about peer support, visit CICMH’s Campus Peer Support toolkit.

Encourage the development of a ‘care plan’

With incoming trade students, support and encourage them to develop a care plan. This type of plan will set out how and where they can seek help if they need it, who they have available to them for contacting in times of need (i.e., friends, hotlines, Be Safe App), and resources available to them as they move through their academic journey.

Bring awareness to stressors apprentices may face

Bringing more awareness to the specific stressors apprentices may face throughout their academic journey in the skilled trades would allow students the opportunity to challenge the stressor directly with coping mechanisms and help seeking behaviours they build upon through other services provided on campus.

Vary service promotion

Increasing service promotion through more visible advertising detailing services offered would facilitate help-seeking behaviour in students. This can be done through social media outlets, events, posters, and/or workshops. These efforts could include having trades-specific wellness liaisons who provide service outreach for trades students when they are on and off campus, and/or providing apprenticeship employers with a list of resources to provide apprentices in times of need.