Minding College Minds™
Emotional stress and personal mental health challenges are the top reasons students in both two- and four-year degree programs consider stopping their coursework. Over the last decade, numerous studies have documented increasing rates of depression and anxiety among college students, negatively affecting enrollment, persistence, and academic outcomes.
Colleges across the nation increasingly recognize that supporting mental health in postsecondary education is essential to student success. And it’s not just students—supporting the mental health of faculty and staff can benefit the entire campus. Our theory of change is that institutions that cultivate a culture of well-being will both increase student success and retain a high-quality workforce.
To help colleges identify and implement programs that meet the unique needs of their campus community, the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute launched Minding College Minds to support colleges in their efforts to serve their campuses effectively. Using the Minding College Minds Postsecondary Mental Health Framework, the Meadows Institute guides colleges nationwide in developing mental health systems that are comprehensive, implementation-focused, and tailored to their communities.
Contact Our Team
Successful Mental Health Systems
The Minding College Minds Framework offers colleges an overarching structure to build effective mental health systems by providing a structured approach to problem-solving, decision-making, and organizing complex information related to mental health.
The Minding College Minds Framework encompasses the full continuum of mental health care. This community-connected model emphasizes creating regionally specific, culturally responsive supports, often through partnerships with service providers in the same community or region. The framework is implementation-focused, offering not only the "what" and "why" but also strategies guiding “how” to build and institutionalize successful mental health systems that promote student success.
For questions or updates, contact mindingcollegeminds@mmhpi.org.
A Practical Playbook for the State of Texas
The Texas Postsecondary Student Mental Health Coalition has released Strengthening Texas College Student Mental Health: A State of Texas Playbook, a first-of-its-kind guide for higher education leaders built around a public health approach to student wellbeing, including the Minding College Minds™ framework as a core strategy.
The playbook offers college leaders practical, evidence-based guidance for building comprehensive campus mental health systems, from prevention and early intervention to crisis response, grounded in data and designed for real-world implementation.
Institutional Commitment
Similar to an institution’s academic programs, the success of its mental health programming hinges on the ongoing investment of time, sustainable funding streams, and strategic commitment to campus mental health and well-being. The Minding College Minds Framework provides the expertise and structure to help colleges understand and address those needs in a thoughtful, systematic way that helps ensure the success of the program. Once implemented on a campus, the Minding College Minds Framework has three core components: Universal Supports, Therapeutic Supports, and Crisis Supports.
- Universal Supports are policies, programs, and interventions that promote belonging and a campus culture that supports student mental health and well-being. Universal Supports benefit the campus in its entirety, with a focus on serving all students, staff, and faculty. Mental health promotion, prevention, screening, and early identification of symptoms and conditions are hallmarks of this component of the framework.
- Therapeutic Supports describe the policies, procedures, programs, and partnerships that institutions should implement to ensure students, faculty, and staff have access to high-quality services. Therapeutic Supports can be offered through on-campus providers for short-term and mild-to-moderate needs, or through community providers for more specialized needs.
- Crisis Supports represent the safety net and spectrum of support intended for students who are experiencing a mental health crisis. This component also encompasses policies and procedures that connect students to mental health care providers for longer-term treatment and support for when they return to campus.
These three components make up a comprehensive, community-connected, and implementation-focused framework for campuswide mental health, well-being, and success.
How can the Meadows Institute help?
Thought Partnership & Resources
The wider Meadows Institute team works across a variety of community systems that address mental health needs. Students do not live in silos, nor does our higher education work. We work with policymakers, programs, and partners across the nation to design and implement seamless postsecondary mental health strategies in their communities.
Direct Support & Technical Assistance
Minding College Minds offers higher education institutions a deep-dive assessment of their postsecondary mental health systems. These assessments are built with the understanding of a college’s unique need, with activities adapted to target the institution’s specific gaps, challenges, and opportunities. Learn more.
Learning Communities
Our Minding College Minds Learning Communities offer institutions community-connected and implementation-focused guidance on building campus-wide mental health systems. Our curriculum follows the Meadows Institute’s Minding College Minds Framework, an innovative, research-based, and field-tested public health model that provides the scaffolding for colleges to build campus systems that support mental health.
Structure & Format
Learning communities typically run for 12 months, bringing together cohorts of 8 to 12 institutions committed to transforming their campus mental health approaches. Following the Minding College Minds Framework, each learning community combines:
- Large interactive convenings with content and activities covering each area of the Minding College Minds Framework
- Small peer groups with activities focused on solving some of the most pressing challenges in the field with real-world examples
- One-on-one technical assistance with experts from the Meadows Institute
- Ongoing access to community members for resource sharing and discussion
- Opportunities to share progress and learn from peer institutions
Benefits & Outcomes
Institutions participating in our learning communities can expect:
- Informative and generative sessions linked to practical strategies under each component of the Minding College Minds Framework
- Enhanced capacity to support student mental health needs at all levels
- Improved cross-campus collaboration and communication
- Data-informed approaches to resource allocation and program development
- Reduced siloing of mental health services across campus
- Creation of customized implementation plans aligned with institutional priorities
If you would like to learn how the Meadows Institute can help advance your mission and goals:
Please contact the Minding College Minds™ team at mindingcollegeminds@mmhpi.org.